Camp’s
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi
Accn- No-. j 43^7
Call No.
The Oxford Thaclceray
"With. Illustrations
THE VIEGIlSriAlSrS
oxFOR-iD ; tiora.ce: harx
RRINXER XO XHR •CTNIVRR.SIX'S'
W. M. THACKERAY
From a bust by N, Barnard in the National Portrait Gallery
The Virginians
A Tale of the Last Century
By
William Makepeace Thackeray
Edited, with an Introduction, by
George Saintsbury
With 147 Illustrations
Henry Frowde
Oxford University Press
London, New York and Toronto
^ The Author reserres the rJight of Tr&nslatioiL
[Facsimile of wrapper to one of the original monthly numbers,]
i ON D O N
BRADBURY & EVANS. II. BOUVERl B STREET.
IS5S
yFacaimile of title-page to vol. ii, jimt edition,~\
a 3
#
[This novel was issued in monthly parts from November
October 1859 ; first edition in book-form, in two volumes,
revised edition, without illustrations, and with certain passages
(given here in the Appendix), 1863; the text is that of
edition.]
1857 to
1858-9 ;
omitted
I revised
#
CONTENTS
PAGE
Editor’s Introduction - > - - - - xv
CHAPTER
I. In which one op the Virginians visits Home - 1
II. In which Harry has to pay for his Supper - 12
III. The Esmonds in Virginia - - - 26
IV. In which Harry finds a New Relative - 34
V. Family Jars - - - - - 43
VT. The Virginians begin to see the World - 58
VII. Preparations for War - - - - 66
VIII. In which George suffers from a Common Disease 76
IX. Hospitalities - - - - - 83
X. A Hot Afternoon - - - - - 97
XI. Wherein the Two Georges prepare fob Blood 109
XII. News from the Camp - - - - 118
XIII. Profitless Quest ----- 129
XIV. Harry in England - - - - 138
XV. A Sunday at Castlewood - - - 147
XVI. In which Gumbo shows Skill with the Old
English Weapon - - - - 157
XVII. On the Scent - - - - - 170
XVIII. An Old Story - - - - - 179
XIX. Containing both Love and Luck - - 192
XX. Facilis Descensus - - - - 198
XXI. Samaritans - - - - - -212
XXIL In Hospital - - . - - 222
XXIII. Holidays 234
XXIV. From Oakhurst to Tunbridge ^ - 242
XXV. New Acquaintances - - - - 254
X
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 'PAG'E
XXM!. In which we are at a very great Distance from
Oakhurst _ - - - - 263
XXVII. Plenum Opus Aleab - - - - 277
XXVIII. The Way of the World - - - - 287
XXIX. In which Harry continues to enjoy Otium sine
Dignitate _ - - - - 298
XXX. Contains a Letter to Virginia - - - 302
XXXI. The Bear and the Leader - - - 311
XXXII. In which a Family Coach is ordered - - 325
XXXIII. Contains a Soliloquy by Hester - - 338
XXXIV. In which Mr. Warrington treats the Company
with Tea and a Ball - - - 346
XXXV. Entanglements ----- 359
XXXVI. Which seems to mean Mischief - - “370
XXX\TL In which various Matches are Fought - 382
XXX'STII. Sampson and the Philistines - - - 392
XXXIX. Harry to the Rescue . - - - 404
XL. In which Harry pays off anOld Debt, and incurs
some New Ones - - - - 413
XLI. Rake’s Progress ----- 424
XLII. Fortunatus Nimium _ - - - 434
XLIII. In which Harry flies high - - - 442
XLIV. Contains what might, perhaps, have been
expected - - - - - 451
XLV. In which Harry finds two Uncles - - 464
XLVI. Chains and Slavery - - - - 473
XLVn. Visitors in Trouble - - - - 437
XLVIII. An Apparition ----- 495
XLIX. Friends in Need - - - - , - 503
L. Contains a great deal of the Finest Morality 51 1
LI. Conticuere Omnes ----- 525
LII. Intentique ora Tenbbant - - - 540
LIII. Where we remain at the Court end of the Town 548
LIV. During which Harry sits smoking his Pipe at
Home ------ 554
CONTENTS
XI
CHAPTER PAGE
LV. Between Brothers - - - 564
LVI. Ariadne - - - . - . 573
LVII. In which Mr. Harry’s Nose continues to be put
OUT op Joint ----- 586
LVIII. Where we do what Oats may do - - 593
LIX. In which we are treated to a Play - - 603
LX. Which treats of Macbeth, a Supper, and a pretty
Kettle of Fish - - - - 617
LXI. In which the Prince marches up the Hill and
Down again ----- 629
LXII. Arma Virumque ----- 636
LXin. Melpomene ------ 659
LXIV. In which Harry lives to fight another Day 673
LXV. Soldier’s Return - ' - - - - 686
LXVI. In which we go a-courting - - - 692
LXVn. In which a Tragedy is acted, and two more are
BEGUN ------ 700
LXVIII. In which Harry goes Westward - - 715
LXIX. A Little Innocent - - - - 720
LXX. In which Cupid plays a considerable part - 735
LXXI. White Favours - - - - - 747
LXXII. (From the Warrington MS.) In which My Lady
IS ON THE TOP OF THE LADDER - - 757
LXXIII. We keep Christmas at Castle wood, 1759 - 766
LXXIV. News from Canada - - - - 752
LXXV. The Course op True Love . - , 701
LXXVI. Informs us how Mr. Warrington jumped into a
Landau ----- 801
LXXVII. And how everybody got out again - - 812
LXXVIII. Pyramus and Thisbe - - . - 823
LXXIX. Containing both Comedy and Tragedy - 835
LXXX. Pocahontas - - - - - 843
LXXXI. Res Angusta Domi - - - >852
LXXXII. Miles’s Moidore 865
LXXXIII. Troubles and Consolations . - - 870
LXXXIV. In which Harry submits to the Common Lot •=■ 885
XIV
LIST OF PLATES
Ai ^ Apparition
_
«
*
page
500
Whose Voice is that ? -
-
-
-
-
-
509
A Young Reprobate
-
-
-
-
-
515
A Prisoner
-
-
-
-
535
A Presentation to Madam Esmond
-
-
-
565
George made much of -
-
-
-
-
601
Macbeth and Lady !Macbeth
-
-
-
-
619
George’s Friends
-
-
-
-
640
‘ Bon Jour, mon Ami ’
-
-
-
-
653
Hetty’s Misgivings
-
-
-
-
675
A Run for the Boats -
-
-
-
-
683
Behind Montagu House
-
-
-
>
745
Mr. Will is presented to his
Sister- in-Law
-
755
Master Miles Warrington
-
-
-
.
760
A Great Lady
-
-
-
-
771
Despondency
-
-
.
.
805
Hope - - -
-
-
.
809
The Patron
-
-
- .
-
862
Miles’s Whistle -
-
-
-
.
867
Warrington Manor
-
-
-
-
887
Plat Rebellion -
-
-
-
-
897
Arbitrium Popularis Aurae
-
-
-
-
-
929
A Rehearsal
-
-
-
-
-
941
Sir George, my Lady, and their Master
-
-
.
1000
#
INTRODUCTION
It would be idle to deny that, in leaving The Newcomes,
we leave the ' Quadrilateral ’ — the great and practically
impregnable central stronghold of Thackeray’s work.
People may, of course, take exception to this or that real or
supposed defect of Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Esmond, andT^e
Newcomes itself. They may urge the excessive pessimism
and the sometimes languid flow of story in the first, the
desultory character of the second, the somewhat artificial
and complicated appeal of the third, while we have our-
selves admitted spots in the sun of the fourth. They may,
in a fashion not quite critically preposterous, though it
may seem to us mistaken, object to the entire system of the
novelist’s procedure, to his loose order, to his constant ‘ ten
minutes for ’ the discourse, which is not to them ‘ refresh-
ment and so forth. NTay, they may, if they have frank-
ness and boldness enough, take the ground, not so uncritical
as it is sometimes held to be, that whether the things be
good or bad, they are not good to them — that they don’t
like them heartily. But I cannot conceive any one, save
a very idle paradoxer of the mixed race of quack and crank,
which is not unknown, or a man hopelessly deficient in
literary judgement, denying that these four books con-
stitute an extraordinary literary achievement, or that,
whether they entitle the author to stand among the very
first two or three of prose fiction or not, they establish him
in the first division of that department to all time. If
there is to be found such a denier, and if one could not
rank him in either of the two classes just defined, it would
be necessary to constitute a sort of species by itself for him.
xvi INTRODUCTION
’#
and suppose him to be congenitally insensible to one parti-
cular kind of literary perfection — colour-blind to one streak
of the spectrum, and in fact to more than one.
But with most of the books to which we are now coming
it is different : and The. Virginiam is the first as well as
the most considerable ^ of the works which lie outside the
impregnable zone. I have not the slightest doubt as to
the place being tenable against any foes : but it requires
some fighting to maintain it. To the mere parrot-cry about
sequels not much attention need be paid. That is a rule
(if it is a rule at all) with so many exceptions that one
may simply rega;rd it as a dead-letter. The Odyssey is not
a failure. I do not think that Paradise Regained is a failure,
qua ‘ sequel ’ at least, Vingt Ans A'prls is most certainly
not a failure : and if Dumas could only have prevailed
on himself to cut out some of the quite unnecessary parts
of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne it would have been almost less
of a failure still. The worst that can critically be said
of sequels, as such, is that in the cases where their forerunners
are good they heighten their own standard of comparison —
handicap themselves as naturally as a good racehorse is
handicapped artificially. But that’s not much.
Nor is the other parrot-cry about ‘ writing out ’ much
more — especially in the case of writers who come, as
Thackeray came, rather late to perfection. There is not
much sign of being written-out in the Dryden of the Fables
or the Tennyson of the Ballads — each about his seventieth
year, or a quarter of a century older than Thackeray.
And if it be said that these were poets (though there is
another popular idea that poetry and youth cease together),
look at Scott and Smollett. The former, until he set
himself to fight a hopeless combat of romance with the
triplebodied giant of ill-health, misfortune, and crushing
^ It is, owing to the system of publication, almost exactly the
same length as Pendennis and The Newcomes, and with them makes
up the three longest of Thackeray’s books.
INTRODUCTION
xvii
over-work, showed, at an age much beyond Thackeray’s,
no such sign in Quentin Durward or in Redgauntlet ; while
Smollett, a hard worker, a harder liver, and an older man
by five years than the author of The Virginians, did his
very best work in fiction, and his last, with Hum'phry
Clinker,
No ; these are no verae causae : but one must remember
that they were causes sure to be alleged sooner or later,
and that they were alleged here. And the book might
seem to be vulnerable on less general and question-begging
grounds. No attempt has been made to conceal the fact
that the scheme of Esmond, which The Virginians directly
continues, is an artificial one, though to the present writer
the art seems quite triumphant over the artifice. It
follows necessarily that the difficulties of continuation,
whatever they are in ordinary cases; must be considerably
aggravated ; and that those who did not like, or only half-
liked, the first book would be even less likely to like the
second. Moreover, the advance of time complicated the
difficulty, again automatically. The time of Queen Anne,
though itself a very great advance in modernity even upon
the time of Charles the Second, is still separated from us
by very distinct manners of phrase and otherwise. You
cannot read a page of Addison without remembering
the gulf : though it may be a tour de force to talk as if you
were on the other side of it, when the tour is once mastered
there is no further difficulty. And you have, in the pro-
blem of combining the points of view of the times of Anne
and of Victoria, the advantage, if you know how to avail
yourself of it, that you can 'change rapiers’, use modern
dialect when you intend to be definitely modern, and not
when you do not. But the third quarter of the eighteenth
century is much more treacherous. Even at its beginning,
and before its beginning, you will find — say in Horace
Walpole — ^fragments and even blocks of diction that are
perfectly modern. About the latter part of it or a little
INTRODUCJTION
xviii
later — say in Fanny Burney — ^you -will find things more
modern still. Yet dress, habits, politics, other things, were
still, as it were, of another world from ours. In applying
the plan to such a time you have to walk on moving sands ;
to lay hold of supports which give no steady handle ; to
speak in dialect which is changing every day.
Nor does this consideration exliaust the apparently weak
places. In no book of Thackeray’s is that neglect of
constructive unity, which has been freely admitted, and
which is to some people,^ it would seem, an unpardonable
sin, so prominent. If the sight of the two swords in
Prescott’s study really gave him his original idea for the
book he allowed it to be almost entirely displaced. For,
though George and Harry do actually serve on the Loyalist
and the rebellious side respectively, it is only in a sort of
appendix to the book ; nothing really turns on it ; and there
are not even any separate scenes of a touching, thrilling, or
amusing nature connected with the fact. Pendennis may in
a way be even more of a succession as distinguished from a
development ; and Philip may come to an end with a more
accidental and promiscuous Bealms-of-Bliss transforma-
tion-scene ; but these have both, in another way, the unity
of the single hero. The Virginians is practically two books,
the hero of the first of which is Harry, vdth a few, though
not unimportant, appearances of George ; while the hero
of the second is George, with a few, and very unimportant,
appearances of Harry. Nor need one, however little one
may care for abstract and preceptist Unities, or however
much one may admit that, in the particular instance,
Thackeray does not violate his almost inviolable sense of
congruity and of life, refuse a certain sympathy to those
who slightly resent, or at any rate feel chagrined at, the
* Others, it is to be feared, are apt to regard the ingenious tessela-
tions of plot rather as my Lord Veriilam regarded those of the
‘ artificial bedding-out ’ in gardens of his time. ‘ They be but toys ;
you may see as good sights many times in tarts.’
INTRODUCTION
xix
utter dethronement of the younger brother. No doubt his
early brilliancy had been accidental and factitious, nor is
he ever represented as being much of a genius, while he
is evidently from the first the destined prey of any woman
from whom Fortune or his friends will not be so kind as to
rescue liim . But the Fortunate Y outh, and what is more, the
generous youth, and the fine gentleman, tied to the apron-
string of Fanny Mountain, and sinking not merely into a
rebel but into a kind of half-loutish country farmer, — without
form, and void of breeding, — may be permitted to go a little
against the grain, to be ‘not in accordance with the feelings
of the commons of Bradwardine As he was really not
wanted any more he might have been made a respectable
victim at St. Cast or somewhere else, and so spared his
later degradations. They are not indeed unnatural ; but
they are unnecessary.
Lastly — ^for if the list of admissions were to go on much
longer it might be thought that the place was going to be
wholly betrayed to the enemy — ^it may perhaps be allowed
that in no book of Thackeray’s is the digressive and
address-to-the-reader habit so freely indulged. It would
perhaps have been better if he had cut out the Garbage
and Grub-street ebullition into 'which he was led by the
coincidence of the Yates affair ; and I am by no means
so sure that he would not have done so if he had lived
a few years longer.^ At any rate, the objectors to the
system have a right, if they like, to point out that it gives
dangerous temptation to a writer to afford himself such
indulgence.
But enough of this, and more than enough ; for a great
deal of it derives whatever validity it possesses from
a source which really ought to be sealed to a good critic,
at any rate until he has formed his judgement without
recourse to it. The proper question to ask oneself — it is
^ )See note at end of this Introduction.
xs
INTEODUCnON
true that it requires both some and a good deal of
critical practice to secure even the possibility of an answer
— is ‘ What should I have thought of this book supposing
that I did not kno\v the author, or even supposing that
it was the first book that author had ever published ? ’
K any one will do me the honour of glancing back over the
last page or two, he will see that the objections are all
mainly, if not wholly, comparative, and in some cases
almost certainly, in others most probably, would not arise
in readers wiio were not more or less familiar with the
author’s work already. Let us for a moment (certainly
not otherwise) abolish Esmond ; let aU the w'ork we have
seen perish ex Jiypoihesi. Let us consider The Virginians
in itself and by itself. One of its own greatest and most
shining virtues we shall indeed lose in part ; but we can
return to that. The others, or most of them, we shall
see in a fashion which will put a fresh edge on our apprecia-
tion of the work generally, and purge the eyesight dulled
by use.
It w'ould depend, probably, on individual temperament
and education whether a reader, approaching The Virginians
under the supposed conditions, would be most struck by
the reproduction of past scenes, manners, and language,
or by the breath of the life of all time which meets him
at once. That scene of the ship entering Bristol, and the
captain, and the merchant part-owner, and the heir-
apparent (or rather presumptive) — ^is there anything like it
out of Thackeray in its combination of the two appeals ?
There is no pedantry in the antiquarianism, but there is
an astonishing verisimilitude. The fact is that, owing
partly to circumstances glanced at, but much more to
others not yet mentioned, the middle of the eighteenth
century is about the first time when the materials for
complete resurrection are at hand. Everything on the
other side of the Restoration is on the other side of a great
gulf — a guK the existence of which is not very easy to
IKTRODUCTION
XXI
explain, but quite impossible to mistake. Mr. Froude, in
one of the finest passages of English prose, expressed the
sense of such a gulf as regards the IVIiddle Ages ; but neither
he nor any one else has really bridged it as regards periods
far more recent. Neither his brilliant rhetoric and his
acute if sometimes hasty historic sense, with all the
assistance of Elizabethan literature for the sixteenth cen-
tury, nor the art-neglecting and matter-preparing labour
of Mr. Gardiner for the rest, with an even greater literary
assistance from letters there, have made the men from
1500 to 1650 absolutely real to us. If I meet any one
who tells me that he really understands even Charles or
Cromwell I shall politely congratulate him aloud on his
cleverness and good fortune — and devoutly congratulate
myself in silence that I am not under any similar delusion.
I may be enabled, by sympathy in the one case, by repulsion
in the other, to form no bad conjectural estimate — but that
is all.
The later seventeenth century becomes much easier,
and the first half of the eighteenth easier still : but at
first there is a great deficiency of the lighter literature
to give us atmosphere, scene, colour. Even for the Queen
Anne men we want more easy private letters, more diaries
and memoirs, above all, more (it would be almost accurate
to say some) novels. All this begins to be provided plenti-
fully as the eighteenth century draws towards its middle :
and of all of it Thackeray has made consummate use.
One hesitates between the Castlewood, Tunbridge, and
London scenes — or rather acts — of Harry’s Prodigal’s
Progress for liveliness, for convincingness, for delight.
And if the later divisions of the book are less lively in one
sense they certainly are not in another. One sometimes
feels in a pleasant quandary as to whether Fielding imitated
Thackeray or Thackeray Fielding.
But the correctness and freshness of the decor sink into
insignificance beside the truth to life, the vigour, the felicity
INTRODUCTION
xxil
of the characters in front, among, sometimes behind, the
scenes themselves. It has been hinted that George Esmond
Warrington perhaps has not fair play. He is kept very
long out of the scene in person ; his early recounted
appearances are dashed by Thackeray’s whimsical deter-
mination to make a saint, sage, and hero at once of George
Washington ; and the long recit of his Indian adventures
in the middle, though perfectly suitable to eighteenth-
century habits, has been less agreeable to nineteenth- and
twentieth-century tastes. The same wilfulness is, perhaps,
shown in the abundance of touches likely to make him
unpopular ; and perhaps to enjoy him thoroughly you
must compare him with his grandfather Henry and his
grandson George Warrington the younger: a trio worth
contemplating, and a wonderful example of Thackeray’s
power over life in difiFerent times. But he is a very
desirable young man in a novel, though there might have
been drawbacks to liim in the flesh. He strikes me as
possessing more of the serious characteristics of Thackeray
himself than almost any other personage in the book (except
his grandfather aforesaid). Perhaps, indeed, he possesses
a little too much, so that the artist has lost freedom and
completeness in taking too much from one sitter only,
and that a sitter whom no artist ever thoroughly realizes,
while his greater modernity deprives him of one of the ad-
vantages of Henry Esmond. But still he is great.
Of the minor characters — ^and they are only minor for
Thackeray — ^it may be said more confidently than ever
that no one reading of them for the first time would be
likely to stint his admiration. The standard is set at
once by the passing sketch of the Bristol merchant above
referred to ; and it is maintained till the last. Gumbo,
and still more Sampson, can hardly be called minor char-
acters : they are too constantly with us, and they are too
finely worked out. As for Gumbo, his re-transference from
Harry to George — a symbolical one — ^is one of the rather
INTRODUCTION
xxiii
harsh exertions of the right of primogeniture which we
have noted. It is to be observed that Thackeray, like
Marryat, obviously had a considerable partiality for the
‘ images of God cut out in ebony ’ ; and that in this as in
other things he was much of his beloved eighteenth century.
For there seems to have been no dislike of ‘ the Nigger ’
in England until the fuss and fiddle-faddle of the Aboli-
tionists created a reaction in personal disfavour, corre-
sponding to the political favour which they worried the
nation into giving. But Sampson has higher claims.
Whether Thackeray deliberately set him against Parson
Adams I do not very clearly make out : but there is no
doubt that he is in the first place a most careful study
of the English eighteenth-century cleric of the looser
kind, transformed subsequently into a live man and a free
work of art. The contrast with Honeyman on one side
and Tom Tusher on the other is one which our supposed
reader-for-the-first-time would miss — but which would
strike him very forcibly later. All middling novelists,
and some great ones, are wont to run characters in moulds :
but this is generally rather a fault than a virtue. It is
Thackeray’s almost unique merit that while he keeps
the class, he utterly discards the mould, and turns out
individuals of the most undeniable individuality. The
Castlewoods and the Lamberts and the other Warringtons
aU share this individualizing faculty : but for some reason
or other Thackeray has stinted his exhibition of it in the
case of that fair invader Lydia. She is individually, in
separate points, quite true : and as the American girl was
then little known and indeed not fully developed, it shows
the master’s extraordinary realizing genius that in two
short visits to the country he should have attained to such
a power of re-creation. But as a whole she wants the last
projection to be as thoroughly real as, for instance, poor
Lady Maria is. In particular it must be thought somewhat
of a rifiuto on Thackeray’s part that he gives us no details
X3dv
INTRODUCTION
of the scene in which, aided, it is true, by Time and Age,
she conquered the unconquerable Beatrix.
But in the last sentence we have come to a reserved
point and figure, the greatness of which, though it might not
wholly escape our imaginary novice, could not be wholly
revealed to him till he had read Esmond. The greatest
achievement of art in The Virginians — one of the greatest
achievements of art in prose fiction — ^is the completion
of the character of Miss Esmond by the delineation of the
Baroness Bernstein. That it is the most delightful, as well
as the greatest, can only be said with a certain reserve.
It is the most delightful to those who can really and at
once enjoy art for art’s sake and nature for nature’s sake :
and it is one of its great points that, even for others,
Thackeray has kept it from being ever disgusting. The
immeasurable scene in which stupid Harry does not recog-
nize the portrait sets the treatment throughout. For my
own part I set this scene beside the Esmond mock-duel,
and the Steyne-Becky edaircissement, though I dare say
I am in a minority. At any rate, the presentation is
complete. I suppose that, artistically, one ought not even
to desiderate the middle stage^ — the sinking of Beatrix,
not Beata, through her rivalry with Miss Oglethorpe (I speak
in a Thackerayan sense, and apologize to my friend
Mr. Lang and to the lady), and through that with Lady
Suffolk, her declension upon Tom Tusher (who, remember,
had been a far-off worshipper of old), and her very dubious
ascension to Baronesshood by the aid of the ambiguous
Bernstein. I doubt \vhether even Thackeray could have
done this successfully — w^hether any art could do in a few
strokes w’hat Nature with mille cariime, ploughing wrinkles
bodily and moral, takes thirty or forty years to effect.
But it was difficult enough to give us the beginning and
the end : and he has done it.
Hardly less skilful, though less delightful in many ways,
is the extraordinarily skilful representation — this time not,
IXTRODUCTION
XXV
indeed, a later stage of the same person — of Beatrix’s half-
sister Madam Esmond Warrington. The one is not less
of a very woman than the other : but the way in which
she has blended her mother’s faults of affectionate jealousy
and virtuous injustice with a little of the bad blood of the
Esmonds (there was no ‘ bad blood ’ in poor Lady Castle-
wood), and few, but the less engaging, of their good qualities,
is masterly. And indeed who, or w^hat, is not ?
The vividness of the pictures of life, which, again, do not
yield to Eielding’s, has been noted. It ought to be visible
intrinsically to all, whether they are acquainted with
eighteenth-century life and literature or not; and it is
hardly enhanced as nature, though it is very much so as
art, by knowledge of that literature and that life. In
the way of more deliberate and tour-de-force following,
the letter assigned to Horace Walpole is, to my thinking,
the superior, not merely of the sham Spectator in Esmond^
but of most other things of the kind. You may go from it
to the sixteen volumes of ‘ Horry’s ’ correspondence, or from
them to it ^without finding a note false or forced; though it
is certainly a 'pastiche of the original at his very best. And
in like manner the introduction of the realities or quasi-
realities of the story is unerring and, out of Scott, unmatched,
while it is more elaborate than Sir Walter’s. In particular
the Johnson passages have a verisimiMtude which is almost
diabolical. The author seems to have the uncanny
advantages of his own creation in The Notch in the Axe,
and to have been the person that he personates. Now,
this is where almost everybody breaks down. It is, in
fact, the Loadstone Bock of the sea of the Historical Novel :
you cannot help being drawn to it, and it almost always
wrecks you. Even Dumas chiefly escapes it by refusing
it — by neglecting, with the audacity of genius, to assimilate
or reproduce the real at all save by direct, though un-
acknowiedged, quotation. I know’- that d’Artagnan’s
adventures are in many cases, if not real, all but con-
xxvi
rNTEODUCnON
temporary fiction ; but I don’t think that Madame de
Sevigne’s actual acquaintance talked at all like his very
delightful representative. I have been in love with
La Reine Margot ever since I was a schoolboy ; but I
doubt whether the girl who spoke Latin with the ambas-
sadors, and the middle-aged lady who carried dried lovers’
hearts about in her many-pocketed farthingale, w^as really
much like the Alexandrine one. But here the Johnson
is Johnson — the very same Johnson w’ho is in Bosw'ell
and in Mrs. Thrale, and in Miss Burney, and in his own
wTitings.
Yet, after all, I am not sure that the greatest charm of
the book — except the Mart Beatrix, as the writers
would have put it — ^is not to be found in the much-abused
and not absolutely impeccant farahases or digression-
addresses. They may be rather excessive ^ — a clear-sighted
and candid critic may admit that it was almost time to
break them off from their parasitic attachment to the
novel, and let them take independent form as ‘ Rounda-
bouts But they are so agreeable! I cannot be very
angry even with the Tom Garbage outbreak ; for, after all,
Tom, who during the past half-century, has been
Blest with issue of a large increase,
is the very vermin of the literary fauna, and deserves neither
law nor grace. I am not sure that the three pages torn out
of Sir George Warrington’s notebook are quite legitimate
or artistic ; but certainly I would not part with their
context as it stands. Yet perhaps Sir George, when he gets
the narration finally into his own hands, does a little
threaten us with the sensations of gloom which he so
frankly admits as having been experienced occasionally
by his guests in Norfolk. Perhaps too, though it was
following the order of life, it was a slight mistake to set
these ‘ skull things in order grim ’ at the end of a book.
^ See note at end of this Introduction.
raTROBUOnON
TXvii
The run-in — there is ample authority both profane and
sacred for the comparison — ^should be accomplished at
a somewhat livelier pace. But at least it finishes, un-
doubtedly by intentional correspondence with EsTnond,
in Sb very lively scene at Castlewood itseK.
^ Yet the practice of ‘ lying-to in order to discourse the
ship’s company ’ is abundantly justified earlier, and indeed
throughout. The most perfect justification is in the noble
panegyric on Bordeaux wine contained in Chapter xxxi
— ^the magnificence and truth of which may indeed be
maintained ‘ in the face of all the pumps that ever spouted
But there are others which are its equals in goodness
and its superiors in length. From the first departure from
Castlewood for Tunbridge to the breakdown of Harry’s
success in Vanity Fair they are numerous and brilliant.
Has anybody in this age of infinite reprinting, extracting,
and what not, ever taken the best of these parabases,
not merely from The Virginians but from all the novels,
and set them together, not as ‘Beauties of Thackeray’,
but as ‘ Essays on Men and Manners and Things in Greneral’ ?
It so happens that, not so long ago, I was looking through
again most of the more celebrated of such things in English
literature from Bacon to the nineteenth century. I do
not think that many would equal them. With such
things as hors-d' ceuvre and side-dishes, with the solid
interest of life-story and marmers-painting for centre, with
the ‘ various vine ’ of character flowing unstintedly for
us, and an endless dessert of phrase and style, how shall
we quarrel with such a banquet as this ?
Note . — When I originally wrote the words to which attention
has been drawn above, I had no idea of the extent to which a full
collation of the text, in part and volume form, would confirm them,
by showing that Thackeray actually discarded not a few passages
of this kind. One or two of the discards may have been necessitated
by the dropping of initial letters, &c. (it may be fancy, but I think
Thackeray, always charming in these things, has never been more
xxviii
INTEOBUCnON
charming in them than here), and these are therefore replaced in
the text between brackets [ ]- The others, in obedience to their
author’s evident desire, take ‘ the second table ’ in the Appendix.
A not inconsiderable number of smaller and unimportant variations
have been as before adjusted silently in the text to what is clearly
the better reading, or left without drawing attention to the worse.
A few of the usual oversights in Christian names, &c., have also been
silently corrected. But Thackeray changed the colours of the
animals mentioned at p. 197 sq. so freely that, without meaning it,
he almost excused Will’s sharp practice, and it is useless to try to
harmonize the |^ss£^e. One or two passages perhaj® require con-
jectural emendation. At p. 386 the complicated “ you believe you
believe ’ in Ijord March’s speech, should, I think, be, ‘ I believe you
believe,’ but as the other makes possible sense it has not been
altered. On p. 494 the original has ‘ drawing-crii^c^,’ which is
nonsense, and the later editions ‘drawing-room’, which is insufficient.
‘ -room with her ’ has been therefore inserted in brackets. — As I
revfee this Introduction I am horrified to find, from Notes and
Queries, that Ihackeray has here attributed maple-sugar making
to the wrong time of year, and has in Esmond quoted Peter Wilhins
forty, years before it was written. Alas I he was always sadly
indiscreet in such ways ; like Shakespeare and Scott,
m
TO
SIR HENRY DAVISON
^ CHIEF JUSTICE OF ‘MADRAS,
^6i8 tnecvifi^b
BY
AN AFFECTIONATE OLD FRIEND.
London, September 7, 1859.
0
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH ONE OP THE VIRGINIANS VISITS HOME
r the library wall of one of
the most famous writers of
America, there hang two crossed
swords, which his relatives wore
in the great War of Independence.
The one sword was gallantly
drawn in the service of the king,
the other was the weapon of a
brave and honoured republican
soldier. The possessor of the
harmless trophy has earned for
himself .a name alike honoured
in his ancestors’ country, and
his own, where genius such as his
has always a peaceful welcome.
The ensuing history reminds
me of yonder swords in the
historian's study at Boston.
In the Revolutionary War, the subjects of this story,
natives of America, and children of the Old Dominion,
found themselves engaged on different sides in the quarrel,
coming together peaceably at its conclusion, as brethren
should, their love never having materially diminished,
however angrily the contest divided them. The colonel
in scarlet, and the general in blue and buff, hang side by
side in the wainscoted parlour of the Warringtons, in
England, where a descendant of one of the brothers has
shown their portraits to me, with many of the letters w^hich
they wrote, and the books and papers which belonged
to them. In the Warrington family, and to distinguish
VIRGINIANS B
VIRGINIANS
2
them from other personages of that respectable race,
these effigies have always gone by the name of ‘ The Vir-
ginians ’ ; by which name their memoirs are christened.
They both of them passed much time in Europe. They
lived just on the verge of that Old World from which
we are drifting away so swiftly. They were familiar with
many varieties of men and fortune. Their lot brought
them into contact with personages of whom we read only
in books, who seem alive, as I read in the Virginians’
letters regarding them, w'hose voices I almost fancy I hear,
as I read the yellow pages written scores of years since,
blotted with the boyish tears of disappointed passion,
dutifully dispatched after famous balls and ceremonies
of the grand Old World, scribbled by camp-fires, or out
of prison ; nay, there is one that has a bullet through^aj,
and of which a greater portion of the text is blotted out ,
with the blood of the bearer.
These letters had probably never been preserved, but
for the affectionate thrift of one person, to whom they
never failed in their dutiful correspondence* Their mother
kept all her sons’ letters, from the very first, in which Henry,
the younger of the twins, sends his love to his brother,
then ill of a sprain at his grandfather’s house of Castlew^ood,
in Virginia, and thanks his grandpapa for a horse, which
he rides with his tutor, down to the last, ‘ from my beloved
son,’ which reached her but a few hours before her death.
The venerable lady never visited Europe, save once with
her parents in the reign of George the Second ; took refuge
in Richmond when the house of Castlewood was burned
down during the war; and was called Madam Esmond
ever after that event ; never caring much for the name
or family of Warrington, which she held in very slight
estimation compared to her own.
The letters of the Virginians, as the reader will presently
see, from specimens to be shown to him, are by no means
full. They are hints rather than descriptions — vindications
and outlines chiefly : it may be, that the present writer
has mistaken the forms, and filled in the colour wrongly :
but, poring over the documents, I have tried to imagine
the situation of the writer, where he was, and by what
persons surrounded. I have drawn the figures as I fancied
they were ; set down conversations as I think I might
have heard them ; and so, to the best of my ability,
ONE OP THE VIEGINIANS VISITS HOME
3
endeavoured to revivify the bygone times and people.
With what success the task has been accomplished, with
what profit or amusement to himself, the kind reader will
please to determine.
One summer morning in the year 1756, and in the reign
of his Majesty King George the Second, the Young Rachel,
Virginian ship, Edward Franks, master, came up the
Avon river on her happy return from her annual voyage
to the Potomac. She proceeded to Bristol with the tide,
and moored in the stream as near as possible to Trail’s
wharf, to which she was consigned. Mr. Trad, her part
owner, who could survey his ship from his counting-house
windows, straightway took boat and came up her side.
The owner of the Young Rachel, a large grave man in
his own hair, and of a demure aspect, gave the hand of
welcome to Captain Franks, who stood on his deck, and
congratulated the captain upon the speedy and fortunate
voyage which he had made. And, remarking that we ought
to be thankful to Heaven for its mercies, he proceeded
presently to business by asking particulars relative to
cargo and passengers.
Franks was a pleasant man, who loved a joke. ^ We
have,’ says he, ‘ but yonder ugly negro boy, who is fetching
the trunks, and a passenger who has the state cabin to
himself.’
Mr. Trail looked as if he would have preferred more
mercies from Heaven. ‘ Confound you, Franks, and your
luck ! The Duke William, which came in last week,
brought fourteen, and she is not half of our tonnage.’
‘ this passenger, who has the whole cabin, don’t pay
nothin’,’ continued the captain. ^ Swear now, it will do you
good, Mr. Trail, indeed it will. I have tried the medicine.’
" A passenger take the whole cabin and not pay ?
Gracious mercy, are you a fool. Captain Franks ? ’
‘ Ask the passenger himself, for here he comes.’ And,
as the master spoke, a young man of some nineteen years
of age, came up the hatchway. He had a cloak and a
sword under his arm, and was dressed in deep mourning,
and called out, ‘ Gumbo, you idiot, why don’t you fetch
the baggage out of the cabin ? Well, shipmate, our
journey is ended. You will see all the little folks to-night
whom you have been talking about. Give my love to
4
THE VIRGINIANS
Polly, and Betty, and little Tommy ; not forgetting my
duty to Mrs. Franks. I thought, yesterday, the voyage
would never be done, and now I am almost sorry it is
over. That little berth in my cabin looks very comfort-
able now I am going to leave it.’
Mr. Trail scowled at the young passenger who had paid
no money for his passage. He scarcely nodded his head
to the stranger, when Captain Franks said, ‘This here
gentleman is Mr. Trail, sir, whose name you have
a-heerd of.’
‘ It’s pretty weU known in Bristol, sir,’ says Mr. Trail,
majestically.
‘ And this is Mr. Warrington, Madam Esmond Warring-
ton’s son, of Castlewood,’ continued the captain.
The British merchant’s hat was instantly off his head,
and the owner of the beaver was making a prodigious
number of bows as if a crown prince were before him.
‘ Gracious powers, Mr. Warrington ! This is a delight,
indeed 1 What a crowning mercy that your voyage
should have been so prosperous I You must have my
boat to go on shore. Let me cordially and respectfully
welcome yoti to England : let me shake your hand as
the son of my benefactress and patroness, Mrs. Esmond
Warrington, whose name is known and honoured on
Bristol ’Change, I warrant you. Isn’t it, Franks ? ’
‘ There’s no sweeter tobacco comes from Virginia, and
no better brand than the Three Castles,’ says Mr. Franks,
drawing a great brass tobacco-box from his pocket, and
thrusting a quid into his jolly mouth. ‘ You don’t know
what a comfort it is, sir ; you’ll take to it, bless you,
as you grow older. Won’t he, Mr. Trail ? I wish you
had ten shiploads of it instead of one. You might have
ten shiploads : I’ve told Madam Esmond so ; I’ve rode
over her plantation ; she treats me like a lord when I go
to the house ; she don’t grudge me the best of wine, or
keep me cooling my heels in the counting-room as some
foto does’ (with a look at Mr. Trail). ‘She is a real
bom lady, she is ; and might have a thousand hogsheads as
easy as her hundreds, if there were but hands enough.’
‘ I have lately engaged in the Guinea trade, and could
supply her ladyship with any number of healthy young
negroes before next fall,’ said Mr. Trail obsequiously.
‘ We are averse to the purchase of negroes from Africa,’
ONE OF THE VIRGINIANS VISITS HOME 5
said the young gentleman, coldly. ‘ My grandfather and
my mother have always objected to it, and I do not like
to think of selling or buying the poor wretches.’
‘ It is for their good, my dear young sir ! for their tem-
poral and their spiritual good ! ’ cried Mr. Trail. ‘ And
we purchase the poor creatures only for their benefit ;
let me talk this matter over with you at my own house.
I can introduce you to a happy home, a Christian family, and
a British merchant’s honest fare. Can’t I, Captain Franks ? ’
‘ Can’t say,’ growled the captain. ‘ Never asked me
to take bite or sup at your table. Asked me to psalm-
singing once, and to hear Mr. Ward preach : don’t care
for them sort of entertainments.’
Not choosing to take any notice of this remark, Mr. Trail
continued in his low tone : ‘ Business is business, my
dear young sir, and I know, ’tis only my duty, the duty
of all of us, to cultivate the fruits of the earth in their
season. As the heir of Lady Esmond’s estate — ^for I speak,
I believe, to the heir of that great property ? — ’
The young gentleman made a bow.
^ I would urge upon you, at the very earliest moment,
the propriety, the duty of increasing the ample means with
which Heaven has blessed you. As an honest factor,
I could not do otherwise ; as a prudent man, should
I scruple to speak of what will tend to your profit and
mine ? No, my dear Mr; ©eorge.’
‘ My name is not George ; niy name is Henry,’ said the
young man as he turned his head away, and his eyes
filled wdth tears.
* Gracious powers ! what do you mean, sir ? Did you
not say you were my lady’s heir ? and is not George Esmond
Warrington, Esq. ’
‘ Hold your tongue, you fool ! ’ cried Mr. Franks, striking
the merchant a tough blow on his sleek sides, as the young
lad turned away. ‘Don’t you see the young gentleman
a-swabbing his eyes, and note his black clothes ? ’
‘ What do you mean. Captain Franks, by laying your
hand on your owners ? Mr. George is the heir ; I know
the colonel’s will well enough.’
‘ Mr. George is there,’ said the captain, pointing with
his thumb to the deck.
‘ Where ? ’ cries the factor.
‘ Mr. George is there ! ’ reiterated the captain, again
THE VIRGINIANS
lifting up his finger towards the top-mast, or the sky
beyond. ‘ He is dead a year, sir, come next 9th of July.
He would go out with General Braddock on that dreadful
business to the Belle Riviere. He and a thousand more
never came back again. Every man of them was murdered
as he feU. You Imow^ the In^an way, Mr. Trail ? ’ And
here the captain passed his hand rapidly round his head.
‘ Horrible ! ain’t it, sir ? horrible ! He was a fine young
man, the very picture of this one ; only his hair was black,
which is now’ hanging in a bloody Indian wigwam. He
w’as often and often on board of the Young Rachel, and
w’ould have his chest of books broke open on deck before
they was landed. He was a shy and silent young gent :
not like this one, which was the merriest, wildest young
fellow, full of his songs and fun. He took on dreadful
at the news ; went to his bed, had that fever which lays
so many of ’em by the heels along that swampy Potomac,
but he’s got better on the voyage : the voyage makes
every one better; and, in course, the young gentleman
can’t be for ever a-crying after a brother who dies and
leaves him a great fortune. Ever since we sighted Ireland,
he has been quite gay and happy, only he would go off
at times, when he was most merry, saying, “ I wish my
dearest (^rgy could enjoy this here sight along with me,”
and when you mention^ the t’other’s name, you see,
he couldn’t stand it.’ And the honest captain’s own
eyes filled with tears, as he turned and looked towards
the object of his compassion.
Mr. Trail assumed a lugubrious countenance befitting
the tragic compliment with which he prepared to greet
the young Virginian ; but the latter answered him very
curtly, declined his offers of hospitality, and only stayed
in Mr. Trail’s house long enough to drink a glass of wine
and to take up a sum of money of which he stood in need.
But he and Captain Pranks parted on the very warmest
terms, and all the little crew of the Young Rachel cheered
from the ship’s side as their passenger left it.
Again and again Harry Warrington and his brother had
por^ over the English map, and determined upon the
course which they should take upon arriving at Home.
All Americans who love the old country — ^and what gently-
nurtured man or woman of Anglo-Saxon race does not ? —
have ere this rehearsed their l^glish travels, and visited
ONE OF THE VIRGINIANS VISITS HOME
7
in fancy the spots with w’hioh their hopes, their parents^
fond stories, their friends’ descriptions, have rendered
them familiar. There are few things to me more affecting
in the history of the quarrel which divided the two great
nations than the recurrence of that word Home, as used
by the younger towards the elder country. Harry Warring-
ton had his chart laid out. Before London, and its glorious
temples of St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s, its grim Tower, where
the brave and loyal had shed their blood, from Wallace
down to Balmerino and Kilmarnock, pitied by gentle hearts;
— ^before the awful window at Whitehall, whence the martyr
Charles had issued to kneel once more, and then ascend
to Heaven ; — before Playhouses, Parks, and Palaces,
wondrous resorts of wit, pleasure, and splendour ; — before
Shakespeare’s resting-place under the taU spire which
rises by Avon, amidst the sweet Warwickshire pastures ; —
before Derby, and Falkirk, and CuUoden, where the cause
of honour and loyalty had fallen, it might be to rise no
more : — ^before all these points in their pilgrimage there
was one which the young Virginian brothers held even
more sacred, and that was the home of their family, — that
old Gastlewood in Hampshire, about which their parents
had talked so fondly. From Bristol to Bath, from Bath
to Salisbury, to Winchester, to Hexton, to Home; they
knew the way, and had mapped the journey many and
many a time; ‘ ’
We must fancy our American traveller to be a hand-
some young fellow, whose suit of sables only made him
look the more interesting. The plump landlady from her
bar, surrounded by her china and punch-bowls, and stout
gilded bottles of strong waters, and glittering rows of
silver flagons, looked kindly after the young gentleman
as he passed through the inn-haU from his post-chaise,
and the obsequious chamberlain bowed him upstairs to the
‘ Bose ’ or the ‘ Dolphin ’. The trim chambermaid dropped
her best curtsy for his fee, and Gumbo, in the inn-kitchen,
'where the townsfolk drank their mug of ale by the great
Are, bragged of his young master’s splendid house in
Virginia, and of the immense wealth to which he was
heir. The post-chaise whirled the traveller through the
most delightful home-scenery his eyes had ever lighted
on. If English landscape is pleasant to the American
of the present day, who must needs contrast the rich
8
THE VIRGINIANS
woods and glowing pastures, and picturesque ancient
villages of the old country, with the rough aspect of his
own, how much pleasanter must Harry Warrington’s
course have been, w^hose journeys had lain through swamps
and forest solitudes from one Virginian ordinary to another
log-house at the end of theday’s route, and who now lighted
suddenly upon the busy, happy, splendid scene of English
summer ? And the high road, a hundred years ago, was
not that grass-grown desert of the present time. It was
alive with constant travel and traffic : the country towns
and inns swarmed with life and gaiety. The ponderous
wagon, with its bells and plodding team ; the %ht post-
coach that achieved the journey from the ‘ White Hart ’,
Salisbury, to the ‘ Swan with Two Necks ’, London, in two
days ; the strings of pack-horses that had not yet left
the road ; my lord’s gilt post-chaise and six, with the
outriders galloping on ahead ; the country squire’s great
coach and heavy Manders mares ; the farmers trotting
to market, or the parson jolting to the cathedral town
on Dumpling, his wife behind on the pillion — all these
crowding sights and brisk people greeted the young traveller
on his summer journey. Hodge, the farmer’s boy, took
off his hat, and Polly, the milkmaid, bobbed a curtsy,
as the chaise whirled over the pleasant village-green, and
the white-headed children lifted their chubby faces and
cheered. The church spires glistened with gold, the
cottage gables glared in sunshine, the great elms mur-
mured in summer, or ceist purple shadows over the grass.
Young Warrington i^ver had such a glorious day, or
witnessed a scene so delightful. To be nineteen years
of age, with high health, high spirits, and a full purse,
to be making your first journey, and rolling through the
country in a post-chaise at nine miles an hour — 0 happy
youth I almost it makes one young to think of him !
But Harry was too eager to give more than a passing
glance at the Abbey at Bath, or gaze with more than a
moment’s wonder at the mighty minster at Salisbury.
Until he beheld Home it seemed to him he had no eyes
for any other place.
At last the young gentleman’s post-chaise drew up at
the rustic inn on Castlewood Green, of w^hich his grandsire
had many a time talked to him, and which bears as its
ensign, swinging from an elm near the inn porch, the
ONE OF THE VIRGINIANS VISITS HOME
9
Three Castles o£ the Esmond family. They had a sign,
too, over the gateway of Castlewood House, bearing the
same cognizance. This was the hatchment of Francis,
Lord Castlewood, w’ho now lay in the chapel hard by, his
son reigning in his stead.
Harry Warrington had often heard of Francis, Lord
Castlewood. It was for Frank’s sake, and for his great
love towards the boy, that Colonel Esmond determined
to forgo his claim to the English estates and rank of his
family, and retired to Virginia. The young man had led
a wild youth ; he had fought with distinction under Marl-
borough ; he had married a foreign lady, and most lament-
ably adopted her religion. At one time he had been a
Jacobite (for loyalty to the sovereign was ever hereditary
in the Esmond family), but had received some slight or
injury from the prince, which had caused him to rally
to King George’s side. He had, on his second marriage,
renounced the errors of Popery which he had temporarily
embraced, and returned to the Established Church again.
He had, from his constant support of the king and the
minister of the time being, been rewarded by his Majesty
George II, and died an English peer. An earl’s coronet
now figured on the hatchment which hung over Castlewood
gate — and there was an end of the jolly gentleman.
Between Colonel Esmond, who had become his stepfather,
and his lordship there had ever been a brief but affectionate
correspondence — on the colomel’s part especially, who
loved his stepson, and had a hundred stories to teU about
him to his grandchildren. Madam Esmond, however,
said she could see nothing in her half-brother. He was
dull, except when he drank too much wine, and that,
to be sure, was every day at dinner. Then he was boister-
ous, and his conversation not pleasant. He was good-
looking — ^yes — a fine tall stout animal ; she had rather
her boys should follow a different model. In spite of the
grandfather’s encomium of the late lord, the boys had no
very great respect for their kinsman’s memory. The
lads and their mother were stanch Jacobites, though
having every respect for his present Majesty ; but right
was right, and nothing could make their hearts swerve from
their allegiance to the descendants of the martyr Charles.
With a beating heart Harry Warrington walked from
the inn towards the house where his grandsire’s youth
10
THE VIRGINIANS
had been passed. The little village-green of Castlewood
slopes down towards the river, which is spanned by an old
bridge of a single broad arch, and from this the ground
rises gradually towards the house, grey with many gables
and buttresses, and backed by a darkling wood. An old
man sat at the wicket on a stone bench in front of the
great arched entrance to the house, over which the earl’s
hatchment was hanging. An old dog was crouched at
the man’s feet. Immediately above the ancient sentry
at the gate was an open casement with some homely
flowers in the window, from behind which good-humoured
girls’ faces were peeping. They were watching the young
traveller dressed in black as he walked up gazing towards
the castle, and the ebony attendant who followed the
gentleman’s step«, also accoutred in mourning. So was
he at the gate in mourning, and the girls when they
came out had black ribbons.
To Harry’s surprise, the old man accosted him by his
name. ‘ You have had a nice ride to Hexton, Master
Harry, and the sorrel carried you well.’
‘I think you must be Lockwood,’ said Harry, with
rather a tremulous voice, holding out his hand to the old
man. His grandfather had often told him of Lockwood,
and how he had accompanied the colonel and the young
viscount in Marlborough’s wars forty years ago. The
veteran seemed puzzled by the mark of affection which
Harry extended to him. The old dog gazed at the new-
comer, and then went and put his head between his knees.
‘ I have heaard of you often. How did you know my
name t ’
‘ They say I forget most things,’ says the old man, with
a smile ; ‘ but I ain’t so bad as that quite. Only this
mornin’, when you went out, my darter says, “ Eather,
do you know why you have a black coat on ? ” “ In
course I know why I have a black coat,” says I. “My
lord is dead. They say ’twas a foul blow, and Master
Frank is my lord now, and Master Harry ” — why, what
have you done since you went out this morning ? Why,
you have a-grow’d taller and changed your hair — ^though
I know — I toow you.’
One of the young women had tripped out by this time
from the porter’s l^ge, and dropped the stranger a pretty
curtsy. ^ Grandfather sometimes does not recollect very
ONE OF THE VIRGINIANS VISITS HOAIE
11
well,’ she said, pointing to her head. ‘ Your honour seems
to have heard of Lockwood ? ’
‘ And you, have you never heard of Colonel Henry
Esmond ? ’
‘ He was captain and major in Webb’s Foot, and I was
with him in two campaigns, sure enough,’ cries Lockwood.
‘ Wasn’t I, Ponto ? ’
‘The colonel as married Viscountess Rachel, my late
lord’s mother ? and went to live amongst the Indians ?
We have heard of him. Sure we have his picture in our
gallery, and hisself painted it.’
‘ Went to live in Virginia, and died there seven years
ago, and I am his grandson.’
‘ Lord, your honour ! Why, your honour’s skin’s as
white as mine,’ cries Molly. ‘ Grandfather, do you hear
this ? His honour is Colonel Esmond’s grandson that
used to send you tobacco, and his honour have come all
the way from Virginia.’
‘ To see you, Lockwood,’ says the young man, ‘ and
the family. I only set foot on English ground yesterday,
and my first visit is for home. I may see the house, though
the family are from home ? ’ MoUy dared to say Mrs,
Barker would let his honour see the house, and Harry
Warrington made his way across the court, seeming to
know the place as well as if he had been born there, Miss
Molly thought, who followed, accompanied by Mr. Gumbo
making her a profusion of polite bows and speeches.
12
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER II
Dir WHICH HABEY HAS TO PAY POR HIS SUPPER
OLONEL Esmond’s grandson
rang for a while at his ances-
tor’s house of Castlewood,
before any one within seemed
inclined to notice his sum-
mons. The servant, who at
length issued from the door,
seemed to be very little affected
by the announcement that
the visitor was a relation of
the family. The family was
away, and in their absence
John cared very httle for
their relatives, but was eager
to get back to his game
at cards with Thomas in
the window-seat. The house-
keeper was busy getting ready for my lord and my lady,
who were expected that evening. Only by strong entreaties
could Harry gain leave to see my lady’s sitting-room and
the picture-room, where, sure enough, was a portrait of
his grandfather in periwig and breastplate, the counterpart
of their picture in Virginia, and a likeness of his grand-
mother, as Lady Castlewood, in a yet earlier habit of
Charles II’s time ; her neck bare, her fair golden hair
waving over her shoulders in ringlets which he remem-
bered to have seen snowy white. From the contemplation
of these sights the sulky housekeeper drove him. Her
family was about to arrive. There was my lady the
countess, and my lord and his brother, and the young
ladies and the baroness, who was to have the state bed-
room. Who was the baroness ? The Baroness Bernstein,
the young ladies’ aunt. Harry wrote down his name on
a paper from his own pocket-book, and laid it on a table
in the hall. ‘ Henry Esmond Warrington, of Castlewood
in Virginia, arrived in England yesterday — staying at the
“ Three Castles ” in the village.’ The lackeys rose up
HARRY HAS TO PAY FOR HIS SUPPER 13
from their cards to open the door to him, in order to get
their "vails’, and Gumbo quitted the bench at the gate,
where he had been talking with old Lockwood, the porter,
who took Harry’s guinea, hardly knowing the meaning
of the gift. During the visit to the home of his fathers,
Harry had only seen little Polly’s countenance that was
the least unselfish or kindly ; he walked away, not caring
to own how disappointed he was, and what a damp had
been struck upon him by the aspect of the place. They
ought to have known him. Had any of them ridden up
to his house in Virginia, whether the master were present
or absent, the guests would have been made w^elcome, and,
in sight of his ancestors’ hall, he had to go and ask for a dish
of bacon and eggs at a country alehouse t
After his dinner, he went to the bridge and sat on it,
looking towards the old house, behind which the sun was
descending as the rooks came cawing home to their nests
in the elms. His young fancy pictured to itself many of
the ancestors of whom his mother and grandsire had told
him. He fancied knights and huntsmen crossing the
ford ; — cavaliers of King Charles’s days ; my Lord Castle-
wood, his grandmother’s first husband, riding out with
hawk and hound. The recollection of his dearest lost
brother came back to him as he indulged in these reveries,
and smote him with a pang of exceeding tenderness and
longing, insomuch that the yoiing man hung his head and
felt his sorrow renewed for the dear friend and companion
with whom, until of late, all his pleasures and griefs had
been shared. As he sat plunged in his own thoughts,
which were mingled up with the mechanical clinking of
the blacksmith’s forge hard by, the noises of the evening,
the talk of the rooks, and the calling of the birds round
about — a couple of young men on horseback dashed over
the bridge. One of them, with an oath, called him a fool,
and told him to keep out of the way — the other, who fancied
he might have jostled the foot-passenger, and possibly
might have sent him over the parapet, pushed on more
quickly when he reached the other side of the water, calling
likewise to Tom to come on ; and the pair of young gentle-
men were up the hill on their way to the house before Harry
had recovered himself from his surprise at their appearance,
and wrath at their behaviour. In a minute or two, this
advanced guard was followed by tw^o livery servants on
14
THE VIKGINIAlSrS
horseback, who scowled at the young traveller on the
bridge a true British welcome of ‘ Curse you, who are you ? ’
After these in a minute or two, came a coach-and-six,
a ponderous vehicle having need of the horses which drew
it, and containing three ladies, a couple of maids, and
an armed man on a seat behind the carriage. Three
handsome pale faces looked out at Harry Warrington
as the carriage passed over the bridge, and did not return
the salute which, recognizing the family arms, he gave
it. The gentleman behind the carriage glared at him
haughtily. Harry felt terribly alone. He thought he
would go back to Captain Eranks. The Eachel and her
little tossing cabin seemed a cheery spot in comparison
to that on which he stood. The inn folks did not know
his name of Warrington. They told him that was my
lady in the coach, with her stepdaughter, my Lady
Maria, and her daughter, my Lady Fanny ; and the young
gentleman in the grey frock was Mr. William, and he with
powder on the chestnut was my lord. It was the latter
had sworn the loudest, and called him a fool ; and it was
the grey frock which had nearly galloped Harry into the
ditch.
The landlord of the ‘ Three Castles ’ had shown Harry
a bedchamber, but he had refused to have his portmanteaux
unpacked, thinking that, for a certainty, the folks of the
great house would invite him to theirs. One, two, three
hours passed, and there came no invitation. Harry was
fain to have his trunks open at last, and to caU for his
slippers and gown. Just before dark, about two hours
after the arrival of the first carriage, a second chariot with
four horses had passed over the bridge, and a stout, high-
coloured lady, with a very dark pair of eyes, had looked
hard at Mr. Warrington. That was the Baroness Bern-
stein, the landlady said, my lord’s aunt, and Harry remem-
bered the first Lady Castlewood had come of a German
family. Earl, and countess, and baroness, and postilions,
and gentlemen, and horses, had all disappeared behind
the castle gate, and Harry was fain to go to bed at last,
in the most melancholy mood and with a cruel sense of
neglect and loneliness in his young heart. He could not
sleep, and, besides, ere long, heard a prodigious noise,
and cursing, and giggling, and screaming from my land-
lady’s bar, which would have served to keep him awake.
HARRY HAS TO PAY FOR HIS SUPPER 17
Then Gumbo’s voice was heard without, remonstrating,
^ You cannot go in, sar — ^my master asleep, sar ! ’ but
a shrill voice, with many oaths, which Harry Warrington
recognized, cursed Gumbo for a stupid negro woolly
pate, and he was pushed aside, giving entrance to a
flood of oaths into the room, and a young gentleman
behind them.
‘ Beg your pardon. Cousin Warrington,’ cried the young
blasphemer, ‘ are you asleep ? Beg your pardon for riding
you over on the bridge. Didn’t know you — course shouldn’t
have done it — thought it was a lawyer with a writ — dressed
in black, you know. Gad ! thought it was Nathan come
to nab me.’ And Mr. William laughed incoherently. It
was evident that he was excited with liquor.
‘ You did me great honour to mistake me for a sheriff’s
officer, cousin,’ says Harry, with great gravity, sitting
up in his tall nightcap.
‘ Gad ! I thought it was Nathan, and was going to
send you souse into the river- But I ask your pardon.
You see I had been drinking at the ‘ BeU ’ at Hexton, and
the punch is good at the ‘ Bell ’ at Hexton- Hullo ! you,
Davis ! a bowl of punch ; d’you hear ? ’
‘ I have had my share for to-night, cousin, and I should
think you have,’ Harry continues, always in the dignified
style.
‘ You want me to go, CotKsin What’s-your-name, I see,’
Mr. William said, with gravity. You want me to go, and
they want me to come, and I didn’t want to oome. I said,
I’d see him hanged first, — that’s what I said. Why should
I trouble myself to come down all alone of an evening,
and look after a fellow I don’t care a pin for ?, Zackly
what I said. Zackly what Castlewood said. Why the
devil should he go down ? Castlewood says, and so said
my lady, but the baroness would have you. It’s all the
baroness’s doing, and if she says a thing it must be done ;
so you must just get up and come.’ Mr. Esmond delivered
these words with the most amiable rapidity and indistinct-
ness, running them into one another, and tacking about
the room as he spoke. But the young Vir^ian was in
great wrath. ^ I tell you what, cousin,’ he cried, ‘ I won’t
move for the countess, or for the baroness, or for all the
cousins in Castlewood.’ Ajid when the landlord entered
the chamber with the bowl of punch, which Mr. Esmond
18
THE VIRGINIANS
had ordered, the young gentleman in bed called out fiercely
to the host, to turn that sot out of the room.
‘ Sot, you little tobacconist I Sot, you Cherokee I ’
screams out Mr. William, ‘ jump out of bed, and ITl drive
my sword through your body. Why didn’t I do it to-day
when I took you for a bailiff — a confounded pettifogging
bum-bailiff 1 ’ And he went on screeching more oaths
and incoherences, until the landlord, the drawer, the
ostler, and all the folks of the kitchen w^ere brought to
lead him away. After which Harry Warrington closed
his tent round him in sulky wrath, and, no doubt, finally
went fast to sleep.
My landlord was very much more obsequious on the
next morning when he met his young guest, having now
fully learned his name and quality. Other messengers
had come from the castle on the previous night to bring
both the young gentlemen home, and poor Mr. William,
it appeared, returned in a wheelbarrow, being not
altogether unaccustomed to that mode of conveyance.
‘ He never remembers nothin’ about it the next day. He
is of a real kind nature, Mr. William,’ the landlord vowed,
‘ and the men get crowns and half-crowns from him by
saying that he beat them overnight when he was in liquor.
He’s the devil when he’s tipsy, Mr. William, but when he
is sober he is the very kindest of young gentlemen.’
As nothing is unknown to writers of biographies of the
present kind, it may be as well to state what had occurred
within the walls of Castlewood House, whilst Harry Warring-
ton was without, awaiting some token of recognition from his
kinsmen. On their arrival at home the family had found
the paper on which the lad’s name was inscribed, and his
appearance occasioned a little domestic council. My Lord
Castlewood supposed that must have been the young gentle-
man whom they had seen on the bridge, and as they had not
drowned him they must invite him. Let a man go down
with the proper messages, let a servant carry a note.
Lady Fanny thought it would be more civil if one of the
brothers would go to their kinsman, especially considering
the original greeting which they had given. Lord Castle-
wood had not the slightest objection to his brother William
going — yes, William should go. Upon this Mr. William
said (with a yet stronger expression) that he would be
HARRY HAS TO PAY FOR HIS SUPPER
19
hanged if he would go. Lady Maria thought the young
gentleman whom they had remarked at the bridge was
a pretty fellow enough. ‘Castlewood is dreadfully dull,
I am sure neither of my brothers do anything to make
it amusing. He may be vulgar — no doubt, he is vulgar —
but let us see the American.’ Such was Lady Maria’s
opinion. Lady Castlewood 'was neither for inviting nor
for refusing him, but for dela5dng. ‘ Wait tiU your aunt
comes, children ; perhaps the baroness won’t like to see
the young man ; at least, let us consult her before we ask
him.’ And so the hospitality to be offered by his nearest
kinsfolk to poor Harry Warrington remained yet in
abeyance.
At length the equipage of the Baroness Bernstein made
its appearance, and whatever doubt there might be as to
the reception of the Virginian stranger, there was no lack
of enthusiasm in this generous family regarding their
wealthy and powerful kinswoman. The state-chamber
had already been prepared for her. The cook had arrived
the previous day with instructions to get ready a supper
for her such as her ladyship liked. The table sparkled
with old plate, and was set in the oak dining-room with
the pictures of the family round the walls. There was
the late viscount his father, his mother, his sister — these
two lovely pictures. There was his predecessor by Vandyck,
and his viscountess. There was Colonel Esmond, their
relative in Virginia, about whose grandson the ladies and
gentlemen of the Esmond family showed such a very
moderate degree of sympathy.
The feast set before their aunt, the baroness, was a very
good one, and her ladyship enjoyed it. The supper occupied
an hour or two, during which, the whole Castlewood family
were most attentive to their guest. The countess pressed
all the good dishes upon her, of which she freely partook :
the butler no sooner saw her glass empty than he filled
it with champagne : the young folks and their mother
kept up the conversation, not so much by talking, as by
listening appropriately to their friend. She was full of
spirits and humour. She seemed to know everybody in
Europe, and about those everybodies the wickedest stories.
The Countess of Castlewood, ordinarily a very demure,
severe woman, and a stickler for the proprieties, smiled
at the very worst of these anecdotes ; the girls looked at
20
THE VIRGINIAlSrS
one another and laughed at the maternal signal ; the boys
giggled and roared with especial delight at their sisters’
confusion. They also partook freely of the wine which
the butler handed round, nor did they, or their guest,
disdain the bowl of smoking punch, which was laid on the
table after the supper. Many and many a night, the
baroness said, she h^ drunk at that table by her father’s
side. ‘ That was his place ; ’ she pointed to the place where
the countess now sat. She saw none of the old plate.
That was all melted to pay his gambling debts. She
hoped, young gentlemen, that you don’t play.
‘ Never, on my word,’ says Castlewood.
‘ Never, ’pon honour,’ says Will — winking at his brother.
The baroness was very glad to hear they were such good
boys. Her face grew redder with the punch ; and she
became voluble, might have been thought coarse, but
that times were different, and those critics were inclined
to be specially favourable.
She talked to the boys about their father, their grand-
father — other men and women of the house. ‘The only
man of the family was that,^ she said, pointing (with an
arm that was yet beautifully round and white) towards
the picture of the military gentleman in the red coat and
cuirass, and great black periwig.
‘ The Virginian ? What is he good for ? I always
thought he was good for nothing but to cultivate tobacco
and my grandmother,’ says my lord, laughing.
She struck her hand upon the table with an energy that
made the glasses dance. ‘ I say he was the best of you all.
There never was one of the male Esmonds that had more
brains than a goose, except him. He was not fit for this
wicked, selfish, old world of ours, and he was right to go
and live out of it. Where would your father have been,
young people, but for him ? ’
‘ Was he particularly kind to our papa ? ’ says Lady Maria.
‘ Old stories, my dear Maria ! ’ cries the countess. ‘ I am
sure my dear earl was very kind to him in giving him that
great estate in Virginia.’
‘ Since his brother’s death, the lad who has been here
to-day is heir to that. Mr. Draper told me so. Peste!
I don’t know why my father gave up such a property.’
‘ Who has been here to-day ? ’ asked the baroness, highly
excited.
HARRY HAS TO PAY FOR HIS SUPPER
21
^ Harry Esmond Warrington, of Virginia,’ my lord
answered ; ‘ a lad whom Will nearly pitched into the
river, and whom I pressed my lady the countess to invite
to stay here.’
‘ You mean that one of the Virginian boys has been to
Castlewood, and has not been asked to stay here ? ’
‘ There is but one of them, my dear creature,’ interposes
the earl. ‘ The other, you know, has just been ’
‘ For shame, for shame ! ’
‘ Oh ! it ain’t pleasant, I confess, to be sc ’
‘ Do you mean that a grandson of Henry Esmond, the
master of this house, has been here, and none of you laave
offered him hospitality ? ’
‘ Since we didn’t know it, and he is staying at the
‘‘ Castles ” ? ’ interposes Will.
‘ That he is staying at the inn, and you are sitting there I ’
cries the old lady. ‘This is too bad — call somebody to
me. Get me my hood — I’ll go to the boy myself. Come
with me this instant, my Lord Castlewood.’
The young man rose up, evidently in wrath. ‘ Madame
the Baroness of Bernstein,’ he said, ‘your ladyship is
welcome to go ; but as for me, I don’t choose to have such
words as “ shameful ” applied to my conduct. I wonH
go and fetch the young gentleman from Virginia, and
I |)ropose to sit here and finish this bowl of punch. Eugene !
Don’t Eugene me, madam. I know her ladyship has
a great deal of money, which you are desirous should
remain in our amiable family. You want it more than
I do. Cringe for it — won’t.’ And he sank back in his
chair.
The baroness looked at the family, who held their heads
down, and then at my lord, but this time without any
dislike. She leaned over to him and said rapidly in German,
‘ I had unright when I said the colonel was the only man of
the family. Thou canst, if thou wiliest, Eugene.’ To
which remark my lord only bowed.
If you do not wish an old woman to go out at this hour
of the night, let William, at least, go and fetch his cousin,’
said the baroness.
‘ The very thing I proposed to him.’
‘ And so did we — and so did we ! ’ cried the daughters in
a breath.
‘ I am sure, I only wanted the dear baroness’s consent ! *
22
THE VIRGINIANS
said their mother, * and shall be charmed for: my part to
welcome our young relative.’
‘ Will ! Put on thy pattens, and get a lantern, and go
fetch the Virginian,’ said my lord.
" And we will have another bowl of punch when he comes,’
says William, who by this time had already had too much.
And he w^ent forth — ^how we have seen ; and how he had
more punch ; and how iU he succeeded in his embassy.
The worthy lady of Castlewood, as she caught sight of
young Harry Warrington by the river-side, must have
seen a very handsome and interesting youth, and very likely
had reasons of her own for not desiring his presence in her
family. All mothers are not eager to encourage the visits
of interesting youths of nineteen in families where there
are virgins of twenty. If Harry’s acres had been in Norfolk
or Devon, in plaice of Virginia, no doubt the good countess
would have been rather more eager in her welcome. Had
she wanted him she would have given him her hand readily
enough. If our people of ion are selfish, at any rate they
show they are selfish ; and, being cold-hearted, at least
have no hypocrisy of affection.
Why sho^d Lady Castlewood put herself * out of the way
to welcome the young stranger ? Because he was friend-
less ? Only a simpleton could ever imagine such a reason
as that. People of fashion, like her ladyship, are friendly
to those who have plenty of friends. A poor lad, alone,
from a distant country, with only very moderate means
and those not as yet in his own power, with uncouth manners
very likely, and coarse provincial habits ; was a great
lady called upon to put herself out of the way for such
a youth ? AUons done I He was quite as well at the
alehouse as at the castle.
This, no doubt, was her ladyship’s opinion, which her
kinswoman, the Baroness Bernstein, who knew her perfectly
well, entirely understood. The baroness, too, was a
woman of the world, and, possibly, on occasion, could
be as selfish as any other person of fashion. She fully
understood the cause of the deference which all the Castle-
wood family showed to her — mother, and daughter, and
sons, — and being a woman of great humour, played upon
the dispositions of the various members of this family,
amused herself with their greedinesses, their humiliations,
their artless respect for her money-box, and clinging
HARRY HAS TO PAY FOR HIS SUPPER
23
attachment to her purse. They were not very rich ; Lady
Castlewood’s own money was settled on her children.
The two elder had inherited nothing but flaxen heads
from their German mother, and a pedigree of prodigious
distinction. But those who had money, and those who
had none, were alike eager for the baroness’s ; in this
matter the rich are surely quite as greedy as the poor.
So if Madame Bernstein struck her hand on the table,
and caused the glasses and the persons round it to tremble
at bor wrath, it was because she was excited with plenty
of punch and champagne, which her ladyship was in the
habit of taking freely, and because she may have had
a generous impulse when generous wine warmed her
blood, and felt indignant as she thought of the poor lad
yonder, sitting friendless and lonely on the outside of his
ancestors’ door ; not because she was specially angry
with her relatives, who she knew would act precisely as
they had done.
The exhibition of their selfishness and humiliation alike
amused her, as did Castlewood’s act of revolt. He was
as selfish as the rest of the family, but not so mean ; and,
as he candidly stated, he could afford the luxury of a little
independence, having a tolerable estate to fall back upon.
Madame Bernstein was an early woman, restless, resolute,
extraordinarily active for her age. She was up long before
the languid Castlewood ladies (just home from their London
routs and balls) had quitted their feather-beds, or joUy
Will had slept off his various potations of punch. She
was up, and pacing the green terraces that sparkled with
the sweet morning dew, which lay twinkling, also, on
a flowery wilderness of trim parterres, and on the crisp
walls of the dark box hedges, under which marble fauns
and dryads were cooling themselves, whilst a thousand
birds sang, the fountains plashed and glittered in the
rosy morning sunshine, and the rooks cawed from the
great wood.
Had the well-remembered scene (for she had visited it
often in childhood) a freshness and charm for her ? Did
it recall days of innocence and happiness, and did its calm
beauty soothe or please, or awaken remorse in her heart ?
Her manner was more than ordinarily affectionate and
gentle, when, presently, after pacing the walks for a half-
hour, the person for whom she was waiting came to her.
24
THE VIRGINIANS
This was our young Virginian, to whom she had dispatched
an early billet by one of the Lockwoods. The note was
signed B. Bernstein, and informed Mr. Esmond War-
rington that his relatives at Castlewood, and among them
a dear friend of his grandfather, were most anxious that
he should come to ^Colonel Esmcmd^s house in England^.
And now, accordingly, the lad made his appearance, passing
under the old Gothic doorway, tripping down the steps
from one garden terrace to another, hat in hand, his fair
hair blowing from his flushed cheeks, his slim figure clad
in mourning. The handsome
and modest looks, the comely
face and person, of the young
lad pleased the lady. He
made her a low bow which
would have done credit to
Versailles. She held out a
little hand to him, and, as
his own palm closed over it,
she laid the other hand softly
on his ruffle. She looked
very kindly and aflection-
ately in the honest blushing
face.
‘ I knew your grandfather
•very well, Harry,’ she said.
‘ So you came yesterday to
see his picture, and they turned you away, though you
know the house was his of right ? ’
Harry blushed very red. ‘ The servants did not know
me. A young gentleman came to me last night,’ he said,
^ when I was peevish, and he, I fear, was tipsy. I spoke
rudely to my cousin, and would ask his pardon. Your
ladyship knows that in Virginia our manners towards
strangers are different. I own I had expected another
kind of welcome. Was it you, madam, who sent my
cousin to me last night ? ’
‘ I sent him ; but you will find your cousins most friendly
to you to-day. You must stay here. Lord Castlewood
would have been with you this morning, only I was so
eager to see you. There will be breakfast in an hour ;
and meantime you must talk to me. We will send to the
Three Castles ” for your servant and your baggage. Give
HARRY HAS TO PAY FOR HIS SUPPER
me your arm. Stop, I dropped my cane when you came.
You shall be my cane.’
‘ My grandfather used to call us his crutches,’ said Harry.
‘ You are like him, though you are fair.’
‘ You should have seen — ^you should have seen George,’
said the boy, and his honest eyes welled with tears. The
recollection of his brother, the bitter pain of yesterday’s
humiliation, the affectionateness of the present greeting —
all, perhaps, contributed to soften the lad’s heart. He
felt very tenderly and gratefully towards the lady who
had received him so warmly. He was utterly alone and
miserable a minute since, and here was a home and a kind
hand held out to him. No wonder he clung to it. In
the hour during which they talked together, the young
fellow had poured out a great deal of lus honest heart to
the kind new-found friend ; when the dial told breakfast-
time, he wondered to think how much he had told her.
She took him to the breakfast-room ; she presented him
to his aunt, the countess, and bade him embrace his cousins.
Lord Castlewood was frank and gracious enough. Honest
Will had a headache, but was utterly unconscious of the
proceedings of the past night. The ladies were very
pleasant and polite, as ladies of their fashion know how
to b^. How should Harry Warrington, a simple truth-
telling lad from a distant colony, who had only yesterday
put his foot upon English shore, know that my ladies, so
smiling and easy in demeanour, were furious against him,
and aghast at the favour with which Madame Bernstein
seemed to regard him ?
She was folle of him, talked of no one else, scarce noticed
the Castlewood yoimg people, trotted with him over the
house, and told him all its story, showed him the little
room in the courtyard where his grandfather used to sleep,
and a cunning cupboard over the fireplace which had been
made in the time of the Catholic persecutions ; drove out
with him in the neighbouring country, and pointed out to
him the most remarkable sites and houses, and had in
return the whole of the young man’s story.
This brief biography the kind reader will please to accept,
not in the precise words in which Mr. Harry Warrington
delivered it to Madame Bernstein, but in the form in which
it has been cast in the chapters next ensuing.
THE VIRGINIANS
2e
CHAPTER III
THE ESMONDS IN VIRGINIA
ENBY Esmond, Esq., an officer
who had served with the rank
of colonel during the wars of
Queen Anne’s reign, found him-
self, at its close, compromised
in certain attempts for the
restoration of the queen’s family
to the throne of these realms.
Happily for itself, the nation
preferred another dynasty ; but
some of the few opponents of
the house of Hanover took
refuge out of the three king-
doms, and amongst others.
Colonel Esmond was counselled
by his friends to go abroad. As
Mr, Esmond sincerely regretted
the part which he had taken,
and as the august prince who
came to rule over England was the most pacable of
sovereigns, in a very little time the colonel’s friends found
means to make his peace.
Mr. Esmond, it has been said, belonged to the noble
English family which takes its title from Castlewood, in
the county of Hants ; and it was pretty generally known
that King James II and his son had offered the title of
marquis to Colonel Esmond and his father, and that the
former might have assumed the (Irish) peerage hereditary
in his family, but for an informality which he did not
choose to set right. Tired of the political struggles in
which he had been engaged, and annoyed by family circum-
stances in Europe, he preferred to establish himself in
Virginia, where he took possession of a large estate conferred
by King Charles I upon his ancestor. Here Mr. Esmond’s
daughter and grandsons were born, and his wife died.
Tliis lady, when she married him, was the widow of the
colonel’s kinsman, the unlucky Viscount Castlewood, killed
THE ESMONDS IN VIRGINIA 2T
in a duel by Lord Mobun, at the close of King William’s
reign.
Mr. Esmond called his American house Castlewood, from
the patrimonial home in the old country. The whole usages
of Virginia, indeed, were fondly modelled after the English
customs. It was a loyal colony. The Virginians boasted
that King Charles II had been king in Virginia before he
had been king in England. English king and English
church were alike faithfully honoured there. The resident
gentry were allied to good English families. They held
their heads above the Dutch traders of New York, and
the money-getting Roundheads of Pennsylvania and New
England. Never were people less republican than those
of the great province which was soon to be foremost in
the memorable revolt against the British Crown.
The gentry of Virginia dwelt on their great lands after
a fashion almost patriarchal. Eor its rough cultivation,
each estate had a multitude of hands — of purchased and
assigned servants — who were subject to the command of
the master. The land yielded their food, live stock, and
game. The great rivers swarmed with fish for the taking.
From their banks the passage home was clear. Their ships
took the tobacco off their private wharves on the banks
of the Potomac or the James River, and carried it to London
or Bristol, — bringing back English goods and articles of
home manufacture in return for the only produce which
the Virginian gentry chose to cultivate. Their hospitality
was boundless. No stranger was ever sent away from
their gates. The gentry received one another, and travelled
to each other’s houses, in a state almost feudal. The
question of Slavery was not born at the time of which we
write. To be the proprietor of black servants shocked the
feelings of no Virginian gentleman ; nor, in truth, was the
despotism exercised over the negro race generally a savage
one. The food w^as plenty ; the poor black people lazy,
and not unhappy. You might have preached negro emanci-
pation to Madam Esmond of Castlewood as you might
have told her to let the horses run loose out of her stables ;
she had no doubt but that the w^hip and the corn-bag
w^ere good for both.
Her father may have thought otherwise, being of a
sceptical turn on very many points, but his doubts did not
break forth in active denial, and he w^as rather disafiected
28
THE VIRGINIANS
than rebelKous. At one period, this gentleman had taken
a part in active life at home, and possibly might have
been eager to share its rewards ; but in latter days he
did not seem to care for them. A something had occurred
in his life, which had cast a tinge of melancholy over all
his existence. He was not unhappy — ^to those about him
most kind — ^most affectionate, obsequious even to the
women of his family, whom he scarce ever contradicted ;
but there had been some bankruptcy of his heart, which
his spirit never recovered. He submitted to life rather
than enjoyed it, and never was in better spirits than in
his last hours when he was going to lay it down.
Having lost his wife, his daughter took the management
of the colonel and his affairs ; and he gave them up to
her charge with an entire acquiescence. So that he had
his boo^ and his quiet, he cared for no more. When
company came to Castlewood, he entertained them hand-
somely, and was of a very pleasant, sarcastical turn. He
was not in the least sorry when they went away.
‘ My love, I shall not be sorry to go myself,’ he said
to his daughter, ^ and you, though the most affectionate
of daughters, will console yourself after a while. Why
should I, who am so old, be romantic ? You may, who are
still a young creature.’ This he said, not meaning all he
said, for the lady whom he addressed was a matter-of-fact
little person, with very little romance in her nature.
After fifteen years’ residence upon his great Virginian
estate, affairs prospered so well with the worthy proprietor,
that he acquiesced in his daughter’s plans for the building
of a mansion much grander and more durable than the
plain wooden edifice in which he had been content to live,
so that his heirs might have a habitation worthy of their
noble name. Sever^ of Madam Warrington’s neighbours
had built handsome houses for themselves ; perhaps it was
her ambition to take rank in the country, which inspired
this desire for improved quarters. Colonel Esmond, of
Castlewood, neither cared for quarters nor for quarterings.
But his daughter had a very high opinion of the merit
and antiquity of Jher lineage ; and her sire, growing ex-
quisitely calm and good-natured in his serene, dechning
years, humoured his child’s peculiarities in an easy, ban-
tering way, — ^nay, helped her with his antiquarian learning,
which was not inconsiderable, and with his skill in the
THE ESMONDS IN VIRGINIA
2N
art of painting, of which he was a proficient. A knowledge
of heraldry, a hundred years ago, formed part of the
education of most noble ladies and gentlemen : during
her visit to Europe, Miss Esmond had eagerly studied the
family history and pedigrees, and returned thence to Vir-
ginia with a store of documents relative to her family on
which she relied with implicit gravity and credence, and
with the most edifying volumes then published in France
and England, respecting the noble science. These works
proved, to her perfect satisfaction, not only that the
Esmonds were descended from noble Norman warriors,
who came into England along with their victorious chief,
but from native English of royal dimity : and two mag-
nificent heraldic trees, cunningly painted by the hand of
the colonel, represented the family springing from the
Emperor Charlemagne on the one hand, who was drawn
in plate armour, with his imperial mantle and diadem, and
on the other from Queen Boadicea, whom the colonel
insisted upon painting in the light costume of an ancient
British queen, with a prodigious gilded crown, a trifling
mantle of furs, and a lovely symmetrical person, tastefully
tattooed with figures of a brilliant blue tint. From these
two illustrious stocks the family tree rose until it united
in the thirteenth century somewhere in the person of the
fortunate Esmond who claimed to spring from both.
Of the Warrington family, into which she married, good
Madam Rachel thought but little. She wrote herself
Esmond Warrington, but was universally called Madam
Esmond of Castlewood, when after her father’s decease
she came to rule over that domain. It is even to be feared
that quarrels for precedence in the colonial society occa-
sionally disturbed her temper ; for though her father had
had a marquis’s patent from King James, which he had
burned and disowned, she would frequently act as if that
document existed and was in full force. She considered
the English Esmonds of an inferior dignity to her own
branch, and as for the colonial aristocracy, she made no
scruple of asserting her superiority over the whole body
of them. Hence quarrels and angry words, and even a
scuffle or two, as we gather from her notes, at the governor’s
assemblies at James Town. Wherefore recall the memory
of these squabbles ? Are not the persons who engaged in
them beyond the reach of quarrels now, and has not the
THE VIRGINIANS
republic put an end to these social inequalities ? Ere the
establishment of Independence, there was no more aristo-
cratic country in the world than Virginia ; so the Virginians,
whose history we have to narrate, were bred to have the
fullest respect for the institutions of home, and the rightful
king had not two more faithful little subjects than the
young twins of Castlewood.
When the boys’ grandfather died, their mother, in great
state, proclaimed her eldest son George her successor, and
heir of the estate ; and Harry, George’s younger brother
by half an hour, was always enjoined to respect his senior.
All the household was equally instructed to pay him
honour ; the negroes, of whom there was a large and happy
family, and the assigned servants from Europe, whose lot
was made as bearable as it might be under the government
of the Lady of Castlewood. In the whole family there
scarcely was a rebel save Mrs. Esmond’s faithful friend and
companion. Madam Mountain, and Harry’s foster-mother,
a faithful negro woman, who never could be made to under-
stand why her child should not be first, who was hand-
somer, and stronger, and cleverer than his brother, as she
vowed ; though, in truth, there was scarcely any difference
in the beauty, strength, or stature of the twins. In dis-
position, they were in many points exceedingly unlike ;
but in feature they resembled each other so closely, that
but for the colour of their hair it had been difficult to
distinguish them. In their beds, and when their heads
were covered with those vast ribboned nightcaps which
our great and little ancestors wore, it was scarcely possible
for any but a nurse or a mother to tell the one from the
other child.
Howbeit alike in form, we have said that they differed
in temper. The elder was peaceful, studious, and silent ;
the younger was warlike and noisy. He was quick at
learning when he began, but very slow at beginning. No
threats of the ferule would provoke Harry to learn in an
idle fit, or would prevent George from helping his brother
in his lesson. Harry was of a strong military turn, drilled
the little negroes on the estate and caned them like a
corporal, having many good boxing-matches with them,
and never bearing malice if he was worsted ; — ^whereas
George was sparing of blows and gentle with all about
him. As the custom in all families was, each of the boys
THE ESMONDS IN VIRGINIA
had a special little servant assigned him; and it was
a known fact that George, finding his little wretch of a
blackamoor asleep on his master’s bed, sat down beside
it and brushed the flies off the child with a feather fan,
to the horror of old Gumbo, the child’s father, who found
his young master so engaged, and to the in^gnation of
Madam Esmond, who ordered the young negro off to the
proper officer for a whipping. In vain George implored
and entreated — ^burst into passionate tears, and besought
a remission of the sentence. His mother was inflexible
regarding the young rebel’s punishment, and the little
negro went off beseeching his young master not to cry.
A fierce quarrel between mother and son ensued out of
this event. Her son would not be pacified. He said the
punishment was a shame — a shame ; that he was the
master of the boy, and no one^ — ^no, not his mother, — ^had
a right to touch him ; that she might order him to be
corrected, and that he would suffer the punishment, as he
and Harry often had, but no one should lay a hand on his
boy. Trembling with passionate rebellion against what he
conceived the injustice of procedure, he vowed — ^actually
shrieking out an oath, which shocked his fond mother and
governor, who never before heard such language from the
usually gentle child — ^that on the day he came of age he
would set young Gumbo free — ^went to visit the child in
the slave’s quarters, and gave him one of his own toys.
The young black martyr was an* impudent, l^y^ saucy
little personage, who would be none the worse for a whip-
ping, as the colonel no doubt thought ; for he acquiesced
in the child’s punishment when Madam Esmond insisted
upon it, and only laughed in his good-natured way when
Ms indicant grandson called out,
‘ You let mamma rule you in everytMng, grandpapa.’
‘ Why, so I do,’ says grandpapa. ‘ Rachel, my love, the
way in which I am petticoat-ridden is so evident that even
this baby has found it out.’
‘ Then why don’t you stand up like a man ? ’ says little
Harry, who always was ready to abet his brother.
Grandpapa looked queerly.
‘ Because I Hke sitting down best, my dear,’ he said.
I am an old gentleman, and standing fatigues me.’
On account of a certain apish drollery and humour which
exhibited itself in the lad, and a liking for some of the
THE VIRGINIANS
old man’s pursuits, the first of the twins was the grand-
father’s favourite and companion, and would laugh and
talk out all his infantine heart to the old gentleman, to
whom the younger had seldom a word to say. George
was a demure, studious boy, and his senses seemed to
brighten up in the library, where his brother was so gloomy.
He knew the books before he could w^ellnigh carry them,
and read in them long before he could understand them.
Harry, on the other hand, was all alive in the stables or
in the wood, eager for all parties of hunting and fishing,
and promised to be a good sportsman from a very early
age. Their grandfather’s ship was sailing for Europe once
when the boys were children, and they were asked what
present Captain Franks should bring them back ? George
was divided between books and a fiddle ; Harry instantly
declared for a little gun : and Madam Warrington (as she
then was called) was hurt that her elder boy should have
low tastes, and applauded the younger’s choice as more
worthy of his name and lineage. ‘ Books, papa, I can
fancy to be a good choice,’ she replied to her father, who
tried to convince her that George had a right to his opinion,
‘ though I am sure you must have pretty nigh all the
books in the world already. But I never can desire —
I may be wrong, but I never can desire — that my son,
and the grandson of the Marquis of Esmond should be
a fiddler.’
‘ Should be a fiddlestick, my dear,’ the old colonel
answered. ‘ Remember that Heaven’s ways are not ours,
and that each creature born has a little kingdom of thought
of his own, which it is a sin in us to invade. Suppose
George loves music ? You can no more stop him than you
can order a rose not to smell sweet, or a bird not to sing.’
‘ A bird ! A bird sings from nature ; George did not
come into the world with a fiddle in his hand,’ says Mrs.
Warrington, with a toss of her head. ‘ I am sure I hated
the harpsichord when a chit at Kensington School, and
only learned to please my mamma. Say what you will,
dear sir, I can mt believe that this fiddling is work for
persons of fashion.’
‘ And Bang David who played the harp, my dear ? ’
‘ I wish my papa would read him more, and not speak
about him in that way,’ said Mrs. Warrington.
‘ Nay, my dear, it was but by way of illustration,’ the
THE ESMONDS IN VIRGINIA ^
father replied gently. It was Colonel Esmond’s nature, as
he has owned in his own biography, always to be led by
a woman ; and, his wife dead, he coaxed and dandled and
spoiled his daughter ; laughing at her caprices, but humour-
ing them ; making a joke of her prejudices, but letting
them have their way ; indulging, and perhaps increasing,
her natural imperiousness of character, though it was his
maxim that we can’t change dispositions by meddling, and
only make hypocrites of our children by commanding them
over-much.
At length the time came when Mr. Esmond was to have
done with the affairs of this life, and he laid them down
as if glad to be rid of their burthen. We must not ring
in an opening history with tolling bells, or preface it with
a funeral sermon. All who read and heard that discourse,
wondered where Parson Broadbent of James Town found
the eloquence and the Latin which adorned it. Perhaps
Mr. Dempster knew, the boy’s Scotch tutor, who corrected
the proofs of the oration, which was printed, by desire of
his excellency and many persons of honour, at Mr. Erank-
lin’s press in Philadelphia. No such sumptuous funeral
had ever been seen in the country as that which Madam
Esmond Warrington ordained for her father, who would
have been the mst to smile at that pompous grief. The
little lads of Castlewood, almost smothered in black trains
and hatbands, headed the procession, and were followed
by my Lord Fairfax from Greenway Court, by his excel-
lency the Governor of Virginia (with his coach), by the
Randolphs, the Careys, the Harrisons, the Washingtons,
and many others, for the whole county esteemed the
departed gentleman, whose goodness, whose high talents,
whose benevolence and unobtrusive urbanity had earned
for him the just respect of his neighbours. When informed
of the event, the family of Colonel Esmond’s stepson, the
Lord Castlewood of Hampshire in England, asked to be
at the charges of the marble slab which recorded the names
and virtues of his lordship’s mother and her husband ; and
after due time of preparation, the monument was set up,
exhibiting the arms and coronet of the Esmonds, supported
by a little chubby group of weeping cherubs, and reciting
an epitaph which for once did not tell any falsehoods.
VIEGINIANS
c
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER IV
rsr "WHICH HARRY TOTDS A NEW RELATIVE
^T> friends, neigh-
bours hospitable,
cordial, even re-
sp e ctf ul, — an
ancient name, a
large estate and a
sufficient fortune,
a comfortable
home, supplied
with all the neces-
saries and many
of the luxuries
of life, and a
troop of servants,
black and white,
eager to do your
bidding ; good health, affectionate children, and, let us
humbly add, a good cook, cellar, and library — ought not
a person in the possession of all these benefits to be con-
sidered very decently happy ? Madam Esmond Warrington
possessed all these causes for happiness ; she reminded
herself of them daily in her morning and evening prayers.
She was scrupulous in her devotions, good to the poor,
never knowingly did anybody a wrong. Yonder I fancy
her enthroned in her principality of Castlewood, the country
gentlefolks paying her court, the sons dutiful to her, the
domestics tumbling over each other’s black heels to do her
bidding, the poor whites grateful for her bounty and
imphcitly taking her doses when they were ill, the smaller
gentry always acquiescing in her remarks, and for ever
letting her win at backgammon — ^weU, with all these benefits,
which are more sure than fate allots to most mortals,
I don’t think the little Princess Pocahontas, as she was
called, was to be envied in the midst of her dominions.
The princess’s husband, who was cut off in early life, was
as well perhaps out of the way. Had he survived his
marriage by many years, they would have quarrelled
HAERY FINDS A NEW RELATIVE ^
fiercely, or, he woxiid infallibly have been a henpecked
husband, of which sort there were a few specimens still
extant a hundred years ago. The truth is, little Madam
Esmond never came near man or woman but she tried
to domineer over them. If people obeyed, she was their
very good friend ; if they resisted, she fought and fought
until she or they gave in. We are all miserable sinners :
that’s a fact we acknowledge in public every Sunday — ^no
one announced it in a more clear, resolute voice than the
little lady. As a mortal, she may have been in the wrong,
of course ; only she very seldom acknowledged the circum-
stance to herself, and to others never. Her father, in his
old age, used to watch her freaks of despotism, haughtiness,
and stubbornness, and amuse himself with them. She felt
that his eye was upon her ; his humour, of which quality
she possessed little herself, subdued and bewildered her.
But, the colonel gone, there was nobody else whom she
was disposed to obey, — and so I am rather glad for my
part that I did not live a hundred years ago at Castle-
wood in Westmorland county in Virginia. I fancy, one
would not have been too happy there. Happy! who is
happy ? Was not there a serpent in Paradise itself, and
if Eve had been perfectly happy beforehand, would she
have listened to him ?
The management of the house of Castlewood had been
in the hands of the active little lady long before the colonel
slept the sleep of the just. She now exercised a rigid
supervision over the estate ; dismissed Colonel Esmond’s
English factor and employed a new one ; built, improved,
planted, grew tobacco, appointed a new overseer, and
imported a new tutor. Much as she loved her father,
there were some of his maxims by which she was not
inclined to abide. Had she not obeyed her papa and mamma
during all their lives, as a dutiful daughter should ? So
ought all children to obey their parents, that their days
might be long in the land. The little queen domineered
over her little dominion, and the princes her sons were
only her first subjects. Ere long she discontinued her
husband’s name of Warrington and went by the name
of Madam Esmond in the country. Her family pretensions
were known there. She had no objection to talk of the
marquis’s title which King James had given to her father
and grandfather. Her papa’s enormous magnanimity
M
THE VIRGINIANS
might induce him to give up his titles and rank to the
younger branch of the family, and to her half-brother,
my Lord Castlewood and his children ; but she and her
sons were of the elder branch of the Esmonds, and she
expected that they should be treated accordingly. Lord
Fairfax was the only gentleman in the colony of Virginia
to whom she would allow precedence over her. She
insisted on the pas before all lieutenant-governors’ and
judges’ ladies ; before the wife of the governor of a colony
she would, of course, yield as to the representative of the
sovereign. Accounts are extant, in the family papers
and letters, of one or two tremendous battles which madam
fought with the wives of colonial dignitaries upon these
questions of etiquette. As for her husband’s family of
Warrington, they were as naught in her eyes. She married
an English baronet’s younger son out of Norfolk to please
her parents, whom she was always bound to obey. At
the early age at which she married — a chit out of a boarding-
school — she would have jumped overboard if her papa
had ordered. ‘ And that is always the way with the
Esmonds,’ she said.
The English Warringtons were not over-much flattered
by the little American princess’s behaviour to them, and
her manner of speaking about them. Once a year a
solemn letter used to be addressed to the Warrington
family, and to her noble kinsmen the Hampshire Esmonds ;
but a judge’s lady with whom Madam Esmond had quarrelled
returning to England out of Virginia chanced to meet
Lady Warrington, who was in London with Sir Miles attend-
ing Parliament, and this person repeated some of the
speeches which the Princess Pocahontas was in the habit
of making regarding her own and her husband’s English
relatives, and my Lady Warrington, I suppose, carried
the story to my Lady Castlewood ; after which the letters
from Virginia were not answered, to the surprise and wrath
of Madam Esmond, who speedily left off writing also.
So this good woman fell out with her neighbours, with her
relatives, and, as it must be owned, with her sons also.
A very early difference which occurred between the
queen and crown prince arose out of the dismissal of Mr.
Dempster, the lad’s tutor and the late colonel’s secretary.
In her father’s life Madam Esmond bore him with difficulty,
or it should be rather said Mr. Dempster could scarce put
HARRY FINDS A NEW RELATIVE
up with her. She was jealous of books somehow, and
thought your bookworms dangerous folks, insinuating
bad principles. She had heard that Dempster was a
Jesuit in disguise, and the poor fellow was obliged to go
build himself a cabin in a clearing, and teach school and
practise medicine where he could find customers among
the sparse inhabitants of the province. Master George
vowed he never would forsake lus old tutor, and kept his
promise. Harry had always loved fishing and sporting
better than books, and he and the poor dominie had never
been on terms of close intimacy. Another cause of dispute
presently ensued.
By the death of an aunt, and at his father’s demise,
the heirs of Mr. George Warrington became entitled to
a sum of six thousand pounds, of which their mother was
one of the trustees. She never could be made to under-
stand that she was not the proprietor, and not merely
the trustee of this money ; and was furious with the London
lawyer, the other trustee, who refused to send it over
at her order. ‘ Is not all I have my sons’ ? ’ she cried,
‘ and would I not cut myself into httle pieces to serve
them ? With the six thousand pounds I would have
bought Mr. Boulter’s estate and negroes, which would
have given us a good thousand pounds a year, and made
a handsome provision for my Harry.’ Her young friend
and neighbour, Mr. Washington of Mount Vernon, could
not convince her that the London agent was right, and
must not give up his trust except to those for whom he
held it. Madam Esmond gave the London lawyer a piece
of her mind, and, I am sorry to say, informed Mr. Draper
that he was an insolent pettifogger, and deserved to be
punished for doubting the honour of a mother and an
Esmond. It must be owned that the Virginian princess
had a temper of her own.
George Esmond, her firstborn, when this httle matter
was referred to him, and his mother vehemently insisted
that he should declare himseK, was of the opinion of Mr.
Washington, and Mr. Draper, the London lawyer. The
boy said he could not help himself. He did not want the
money : he would be very glad to think otherwise, and
to give the money to his mother, if he had the power.
But Madam Esmond would not hear any of these reasons.
Feelings were her reasons. Here was a chance of making
THE VIRGINIANS
Harry’s fortune — dear Harry, who was left with such
a slender younger brother’s pittance — and the wretches
in London would not help him ; his own brother, who
inherited all her papa’s estate, would not help him. To
think of a child of hers being so mean at fourteen years of
age ! &;o. &;c. Add tears, scorn, frequent innuendo, long
estrangement, bitter outbreak, passionate appeals to
Heaven, and the like, and we may fancy the widow’s state
of mind. Are there not belov^ beings of the gentler
sex who argue in the same way nowadays ? The book
of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice
in their courts is for ever in a passion.
This occurrence set the widow resolutely saving for her
younger son, for whom, as in duty bound, she was eager
to make a portion. The fine buildings were stopped
which the colonel had commenced at Castlewood, who had
freighted ships from New York with Dutch bricks, and
imported, at great charges, mantelpieces, carved cornice-
work, sashes and glass, carpets and costly upholstery
from home. No more books were bought. The agent
had orders to discontinue sending wine. Madam Esmond
deeply regretted the expense of a fine carriage which she
had had from England, and only rode in it to church groan-
ing in spirit, and crying to the sons opposite her, ‘ Harry !
Harry ! I wish I had put by the money for thee, my poor
portionless child — three hundred and eighty guineas of
ready money to Messieurs Hatchett ! ’
‘ You will give me plenty while you live, and George
will give me plenty when you die,’ says Harry, gaily.
‘ Not unless he changes in S'pirit, my dear,’ says the lady,
with a grim glance at her elder boy. ‘ Not unless Heaven
softens his heart and teaches him charity, for which I pray
day and night ; as Mountain knows ; do you not, Moun-
tain ? ’
Mrs. Mountain, Ensign Mountain’s widow, Madam
Esmond’s companion and manager, who took the fourth
seat in the family coach on these Sundays, said, ‘ Humph !
I know you are always disturbing yourself and crying
out about this legacy, and I don’t see that there is any
need.’
‘ Oh, no ! no need ! ’ cries the widow, rustling in her
silks ; ‘ of course I have no need to be disturbed, because
my eldest born is a disobedient son and an unkind brother —
HARRY FINDS A NEW RELATIVE
41
because he has an estate, and my poor Harry, bless liim,
but a mess of 'pottage,^
George looked despairingly at his mother until he could
see her no more for eyes welled up with tears. ‘ I wish
you would bless me, too, 0 my mother ! ’ he said, and
burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Harry’s arms
were in a moment round his brother’s neck, and he kissed
George a score of times.
‘ Never mind, George. 1 know whether you are a good
brother or not. Don’t mind what she says. She don’t
mean it.’
‘ I do mean it, child,’ cries the mother. ‘ Would to
Heaven ’
' Hold your tongue, I say ! ’ roars out Harry. ' It’s
a shame to speak so to him, ma’am.’
‘ And so it is, Harry,’ says Mrs. Mountain, shaking
his hand. ‘ You never said a truer word in your life.’
‘ Mrs. Mountain, do you dare to set my children against
me ? ’ cries the widow. ‘ From this very day, madam ’
‘ Turn me and my child into the street ? Do,’ says Mrs.
Mountain. ‘ That will be a fine revenge because the English
lawyer won’t give you the boy’s money. Find another
companion who will tell you black is white, and fiatter
you : it is not my way, madam. When shall I go ? I shan’t
be long a-packing. I did not bring much into Castlewood
House, and I shall not take much out.’
‘ Hush ! the bells are ringing for church. Mountain.
Let us try, if you please, and compose ourselves,’ said the
widow, and she looked with eyes of extreme afiection,
certainly at one — ^perhaps at both — of her children.
George kept his head down, and Harry, who was near,
got quite close to him during the sermon, and sat with his
arm round his brother’s neck.
Harry had proceeded in his narrative after his own
fashion, interspersing it with many youthful ejaculations,
and answering a number of incidental questions asked
by his listener. The old lady seemed never tired of hearing
him. Her amiable hostess and her daughters came more
than once, to ask if she would ride, or walk, or take a dish
of tea, or play a game at cards ; but all these amusements
Madame Bernstein declined, saying that she found infin-
ite amusement in Harry’s conversation. Especially when
c 3
42
THE VIRGINIANS
any of the Oastlewood family were present, she. redoubled
her caresses, insisted upon the lad speaking close to her
ear, and would call out to the others, ‘ Hush, my dears !
I can’t hear our cousin speak.’ And they would quit
the room, striving still to look pleased.
‘ Are you my cousin, too ? ’ asked the honest boy. ‘ You
seem kinder than my other cousins.’
Their talk took place in the wainscoted parlour, where
the family had taken their meals in ordinary for at least
two centuries past, and which, as we have said, was hung
with portraits of the race. Over Madame Bernstein’s
great chair was a Kneller, one of the most brilliant pictures
of the gallery, representing a young lady of three- or f our-
and-twenty, in the easy flowing dress and loose robes of
Queen Anne’s time — a hand on a cushion near her, a
quantity of auburn hair, parted off a fair forehead, and
flowing over pearly shoulders and a lovely neck. Under
this sprightly picture the lady sat with her knitting-needles.
When Harry asked, ‘ Are you my cousin, too ? ’ she
said, ‘ That picture is by Sir Godfrey, who thought himself
the greatest painter in the world. But he was not so good
as lely, who painted your grandmother — my — my Lady
Oastlewood, Colonel Esmond’s wife ; nor he so good as
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, who painted your great-grand-
father, yonder — and who looks, Harry, a much finer
gentleman than he was. Some of us are painted blacker
than we are. Did you recognize your grandmother in that
picture ? She had the loveliest fair hair and shape of any
woman of her time.’
‘ I fancied I knew the portrait from instinct, perhaps,
and a certain likeness to my mother.’
‘ Did Mrs, Warrington — I beg her pardon, I think she
calls herself Madam or my Lady Esmond now . . . ? ’
" They call my mother so in our province,’ said the boy.
‘ Did she never tell you of another daughter her mother
had in England, before she married your grandfather ? ’
‘ She never spoke of one.’
* Nor your grandfather ? ’
‘ Never. But in his picture-books, which he constantly
made for us children, he used to draw a head very like
that above your ladyship. That, and Viscount Francis,
and King James III, he drew a score of times, I am
sure.’
HARRY FINDS A NEW RELATIVE
43
" And the picture over me reminds you of no one, Harry ? ’
‘No, indeed.’
‘ Ah ! Here is a sermon ! ’ says the lady, with a sigh.
‘ Harry, that was my face once — ^yes, it was — and then
I was called Beatrix Esmond. And your mother is my
half-sister, child, and she has never even mentioned my
name ! ’
CHAPTER V
FAMILY JABS
5 Harry Warrington related
to his new-found relative
the simple story of his
adventures at home, no
doubt Madame Bernstein,
who possessed a great sense
of humour and a remark-
able knowledge of the
world, formed her judge-
ment respecting the persons
and events described ; and
if her opinion was not in all
respects favourable, what
can be said but that men
and women are imperfect,
and human life not entirely
pleasant or profitable ?
The court- and city-bred lady recoiled at the mere thought
of her American sister’s countrified existence. Such a
life would be rather wearisome to most city-bred ladies.
But little Madam Warrington knew no better, and was
satisfied with her life, as indeed she was with herself in
general. Because you and I are epicures or dainty feeders,
it does not follow that Hodge is miserable with his homely
meal of bread and bacon. Madam Warrington had a life
of duties and employments which might be humdrum,
but at any rate were pleasant to her. She was a brisk
little woman of business, and aU the affairs of her large
estate came under her cognizance. No pie was baked
at Castlewood but her little finger was in it. She set
44
THE VIRGINIANS
the maids to their spinning, she saw the kitchen wenches
at their work, she trotted afield on her pony, and oversaw
the overseers and the negro hands as they worked in the
tobacco- and corn-fields. If a slave was iU, she would go
to his quarters in any weather, and doctor him with great
resolution. She had a book full of receipts after the old
fashion, and a closet where she distiUed waters and com-
pounded elixirs, and a medicine-chest which was the terror of
her neighbours. They trembled to be ill, lest the little lady
should be upon them with her decoctions and her pills.
A hundred years back there were scarce any towns
in Virginia ; the establishments of the gentry were little
villages in which they and their vassals dwelt. Rachel
Esmond ruled like a little queen in Castlewood ; the
princes her neighbours governed their estates round
about. Many of these were rather needy potentates,
living plentifully but in the roughest fashion, having
numerous domestics whose liveries were often ragged ;
keeping open houses, and turning away no stranger from
their gates ; proud, idle, fond of all sorts of field sports
as became gentlemen of good lineage. The widow of
Castlewood was as hospitable as her neighbours, and
a better economist than most of them. More than one,
no doubt, would have had no objection to share her life
interest in the estate, and supply the place of papa to her
boys. But where was the man good enough for a person
of her ladyship’s exalted birth ? There was a talk of
making the Duke of Cumberland viceroy, or even king,
over America, Madam Warrington’s gossips laughed, and
said she was waiting for him. She remarked, with much
gravity and dignity, that persons of as high birth as his
royal highness had made offers of alliance to the Esmond
family.
She had, as lieutenant under her, an officer’s widow
who has been before named, and who had been Madam
Esmond’s companion at school, as her late husband had
been the regimental friend of the late Mr. Warrington.
When the English girls at the Kensington academy, where
Rachel Esmond had her education, teased and tortured
the little American stranger, and laughed at the princified
airs which she gave herself from a very early age, Fanny
Parker defended and befriended her. They both married
ensigns in ELingsley’s. They became tenderly attached
FAMILY JARS
45
to each other. It was ‘ my Fanny ^ and ‘ my Rachel ^
in the letters of the young ladies. Then my Fanny’s
husband died in sad out-at-elbowed circumstances, leaving
no provision for his widow and her infant ; and, in one
of his annual voyages, Captain Franks brought over Mrs.
Mountain, in the Young Eachel, to Virginia.
There was plenty of room in Castlewood House, and Mrs.
Mountain served to enliven the place. She played cards
with the mistress : she had some knowledge of music,
and could help the eldest boy in that way : she laughed
and was pleased with the guests : she saw to the strangers^
chambers, and presided over the presses and the linen.
She was a kind, brisk, jolly-looking widow, and more than
one unmarried gentleman of the colony asked her to change
her name for his own. But she chose to keep that of Moun-
tain, though, and perhaps because, it had brought her
no good fortune. One marriage was enough for her, she
said. Mr. Mountain had amiably spent her little fortune
and his own. Her last trinkets went to pay his funeral ;
and, as long as Madam Warrington would keep her at
Castlewood, she preferred a home without a husband
to any which as yet had been offered to her in Virginia.
The two ladies quarrelled plentifully ; but they loved
each other : they made up their differences : they fell
out again, to be reconciled presently. When either of the
boys was ill, each lady vi^ with the other in maternal
tenderness and care. In his last days and illness, Mrs.
Mountain’s cheerfulness and kindness had been greatly
appreciated by the colonel, whose memory Madam Warring-
ton regarded more than that of any living person. So
that, year after year, when Captain Franks would ask
Mrs. Mountain, in his pleasant way, whether she was
going back with him that voyage, she would decline,
and say that she proposed to stay a year more.
And when suitors came to Madam Warrington, as come
they would, she would receive their compliments and atten-
tions kindly enough, and asked more than one of these
lovers whether it was Mrs. Mountain he came after ?
She would use her best offices with Mountain. Fanny
was the best creature, w^as of a good English family, and
would make any gentleman happy. Did the squire declare
it was to her and not her dependant that he paid his
addresses, she would make him her gravest curtsy, say
46
THE VIRGINIANS
that she really had been utterly mistaken as to his views,
and let him know that the daughter of the Marquis of
Esmond lived for her people and her sons, and did not
propose to change her conation. Have we not read how
Queen Elizabeth was a perfectly sensible woman of business,
and was pleased to inspire not only terror and awe, but
love in the bosoms of her subjects ? So the little Virginian
princess had her favourites, and accepted their flatteries,
and grew tired of them, and was cruel or kind to them
as suited her wayward imperial humour. There was no
amount of compliment which she would not graciously
receive and take as her due. Her little foible was so weU
known that the wags used to practise upon it. Rattling
Jack Firebrace of Henrico county had free quarters for
months at Castlewood, and was a prime favourite with
the lady there, because he addressed verses to her which
he stole out of the pocket-books. Tom Humbold of
Spotsylvania wagered Mty hogsheads against five that he
would make her institute an order of knighthood, and won
his wager.
The elder boy saw these freaks and oddities of his good
mother’s disposition, and chafed and raged at them pri-
vately. From very early days he revolted when flatteries
and compliments were paid to the little lady, and strove to
expose them with his juvenile satire ; so that his mother
would say gravely, ‘ The Esmonds were always of a jealous
disposition, and my poor boy takes after my father and
mother in this.’ George hated Jack Firebrace and Tom
Humbold, and aU their like ; whereas Harry went out
sporting with them, and fowling, and fishing, and cock-
fighting, and enjoyed all the fun of the country.
One winter, after their first tutor had been dismissed.
Madam Esmond took them to Williamsburg, for such
education as the schools and college there afforded, and
there it was the fortune of the family to listen to the preach-
ing of the famous Mr. Whitfield, who had come into Virginia,
where the habits and preaching of the established clergy
were not very edifying. Unlike many of the neighbouring
provinces, Virginia was a Church of England colony : the
clergymen were paid by the State and had glebes allotted
to them ; and, there being no Church of England bishop
as yet in America, the colonists were obliged to import
their divines from the mother-country. Such as came
FAMILY JARS
47
were not, naturally, of the very best or most eloquent
kind of pastors. Noblemen's hangers-on, insolvent parsons
who had quarrelled with justice or the bailiff, brought
their stained cassocks into the colony in the hopes of
finding a living there. No wonder that Wliitfield’s great
voice stirred those whom harmless Mr. Broadbent, the
Williamsburg chaplain, never could awaken. At first
the boys were as much excited as their mother by Mr.
Whitfield : they sang hymns, and listened to him with
fervour, and, could he have remained long enough among
them, Harry and George had both worn black coats pro-
bably instead of epaulettes. The simple boys communi-
cated their experiences to one another, and were on the
daily and nightly look-out for the sacred ‘ call in the
hope or the possession of which such a vast multitude
of Protestant England was thrilling at the time.
But Mr. Whitfield could not stay always with the little
congregation of Williamsburg. His mission was to en-
lighten the whole benighted people of the Church, and from
the East to the West to trumpet the truth and bid slumber-
ing sinners awaken. However, he comforted the widow with
precious letters, and promised to send her a tutor for her
sons who should be capable of teaching them not only
profane learning, but of strengthening and confirming
them in science much more precious.
In due course, a chosen vessel arrived from England.
Young Mr. Ward had a voice as loud as Mr. Whitfield's,
and could talk almost as readily and for as long a time.
Night and evening the hall sounded with his exhortations.
The domestic negroes crept to the doors to listen to him.
Other servants darkened the porch windows with their
crisp heads to hear him discourse. It was over the black
sheep of the Castlewood fiock that Mr. Ward somehow had
the most influence. Th ese woolly lamblings were immensely
affected by his exhortations, and, when he gave out the
hymn, there was such a negro chorus about the house
as might be heard across the Potomac — such a chorus
as would never have been heard in the colonel’s time —
for that worthy gentleman had a suspicion of all cassocks,
and said he would never have any controversy with a
clergyman but upon backgammon. Where money was
wanted for charitable purposes no man was more ready,
and the good, easy Virginian clergyman, who loved back-
48
THE VIRGINIAjSfS
gammon heartily, too, said that the worthy colonel’s
charity must cover his other shortcomings.
Ward was a handsome young man. His preaching
pleased Madam Esmond from the first, and, I dare say,
satisfied her as much as Mr. Whitfield’s. Of course it
cannot be the case at the present day w^hen they are so
finely educated, but women a hundred years ago, were
credulous, eager to admire and believe, and apt to imagine
all sorts of excellences in the object of their admiration.
For weeks, nay, months. Madam Esmond was never tired
of hearing Mr. Ward’s great glib voice and voluble common-
places : and, according to her w^ont, she insisted that her
neighbours should come and listen to him, and ordered
them to be converted. Her young favourite, Mr. Washing-
ton, she was especially anxious to influence ; and again
and again pressed him to come and stay at Castlewood
and benefit by the spiritual advantages there to be obtained.
But that young gentleman found he had particular business
which called Mm home or away from home, and always
ordered his horse of evenings, when the time was coming
for Mr. Ward’s exercises. And — ^what boys are just towards
their pedag(^e ? — ^the twins grew speedily tired and even
rebellious under their new teacher.
They found him a bad scholar, a dull fellow, and ill-bred
to boot. George knew much more Latin and Greek than
his master, and caught Mm in perpetual blunders and false
quantities. Harry, who could take much greater liberties
than were allowed to Ms elder brother, mimicked Ward’s
manner of eating and talking, so that Mrs. Mountain and
even Madam Esmond were forced to laugh, and little
Fanny Mountain would crow with dehght. Madam
Esmond would have found the fellow out for a vulgar
quack but for her sons’ opposition, wMch she, on her part,
opposed with her own indomitable will. ‘ What matters
whether he has more or less of profane learning ? ’ she
asked ; ‘ in that wMch is most precious, Mr. W. is able
to be a teacher to all of us. ^^at if his manners are
a little rough ? Heaven does not choose its elect from
among the great and wealthy. I wish you knew one
book, children, as well as Mr. Ward does. It is your
wicked pride — the pride of all the Esmonds — which prevents
you from listening to Mm. Go down on your knees in
your chamber and pray to be corrected of that dreadful
FAMILY JARS
49
fault.’ Ward’s discourse that evening was about Naaman
the Syrian, and the pride he had in his native rivers of
Abana and Pharpar, which he vainly imagined to be superior
to the healing waters of Jordan — the moral being, that
he. Ward, was the keeper and guardian of the undoubted
waters of Jordan, and that the unhappy, conceited boys
must go to perdition unless they came to him.
George now began to give way to a wicked sarcastic
method, which, perhaps, he had inherited from his grand-
father, and with which, when a quiet, skilful young person
chooses to employ it, he can make a whole family uncom-
fortable. He took up Ward’s pompous remarks and
made jokes of them, so that that young divine chafed and
almost choked over his great meals. He made Madam
Esmond angry, and doubly so when he sent off Harry into
fits of laughter. Her authority was defied, her officer
scorned and insulted, her youngest child perverted, by the
obstinate elder brother. She made a desperate and un-
happy attempt to maintain her power.
The boys were fourteen years of age, Harry being taller
and much more advanced than his brother, who was
delicate, and as yet almost childlike in stature and appear-
ance. The bacuUne method was a quite common mode
of argument in those days. Sergeants, schoolmasters,
slave-overseers, used the cane freely. Our little boys had
been horsed many a day by Mr. Dempster, their Scotch
tutor, in their grandfather’s time ; and Harry, especially,
had got to be quite accustomed to the practice, and made
very light of it. But, in the interregnum after Colonel
Esmond’s death, the cane had been laid aside, and the
young gentlemen of Castlewood had been allowed to have
their own way. Her own and her lieutenant’s authority
being now spurned by the youthful rebels, the unfortunate
mother thought of restoring it by means of coercion.
She took counsel of Mr. Ward. That athletic young
pedagogue could easily find chapter and verse to warrant
the course which he wished to pursue — ^in fact, there was
no doubt about the wholesomeness of the practice in those
days. He had begun by flattering the boys, finding a good
berth and snug quarters at Castlewood, and hoping to
remain there. But they laughed at his flattery, they
scorned his bad manners, they yawned soon at his sermons ;
the more their mother favoured him, the more they dis-
THE VIRGINIANS
^2
widow had received from her impetuous young spiritual
guide, and I doubt whether it brought her much comfort.
In the midst of his mother’s harangue, in spite of it,
perhaps, George Esmond felt he had been wrong. ^ There
can be but one command in the house, and you must be
mistress — I know who said those words before you,’ George
said slowly, and looking very white — ‘ and — and I know,
mother, that I have acted wrongly to Mr. Ward.’
^ He owns it ! He asks pardon ! ’ cries Harry. ' That’s
right, George ! That’s enough, isn’t it ? ’
‘ No, it is not enough ! ’ cried the little woman. ‘ The
disobe^ent boy must pay the penalty of his disobedience.
When I was headstrong, as I sometimes was as a child
before my spirit was changed and humbled, my mamma
punished me, and I submitted. So must George. I desire
you will do your duty, Mr. Ward.’
‘ Stop, mother ! — ^you don’t quite know what you are
doing,’ George said, exceedingly agitated.
‘ I know that he who spares the rod spoils the child,
ungrateful boy I ’ says Madam Esmond, with more re-
ferences of the same nature, which George heard, looking
very pale and desperate.
Upon the mantelpiece, imder the colonel’s portrait,
stood a china cup, by which the widow set great store, as
her father had always been accustomed to drink from it.
George suddenly took it, and a strange smile passed over
his pale face.
^ Stay one minute. Don’t go away yet,’ he cried to
his mother, who was leaving the room. ‘ You — ^you are
very fond of this cup, mother ? ’ — ^and Harry looked at
him, wondering. ‘ If I broke it, it could never be mended,
could it ? All the tinkers’ rivets would not make it a whole
cup again. My dear old grandpapa’s cup I I have been
wrong. Mr. Ward, I ask pardon. I will try and amend.’
The widow looked at her son indignantly, almost scorn-
fully. ‘ I thought,’ she said, ‘ I thought an Esmond had
been more of a man than to be afraid, and’ — ^here she
gave a little scream as Harry uttered an exclamation,
and dashed forward with his hands stretched out towards
his brother.
George, after looking at the cup, raised it, opened his hand,
and let it fall on the marble slab below him. Harry had
tried in vain to catch it.
FAMILY JAES
53
‘ It is too late, Hal,’ George said. ' You wiU never mend
that again — ^never. Now, mother, I am ready, as it is
your vish. Will you come and see whether I am afraid ?
^Ir. Ward, I am your servant. Your servant ? Your
slave ! And the next time I meet Mr. Washington, madam,
I will thank him for the advice which he gave you.’
‘ I say, do your duty, sir ! ’ cried Mrs. Esmond, stamping
her little foot. And George, making a low bow to Mr.
Ward, begged him to go first out of the room to the study.
" Stop ! For God’s sake, mother, stop ! ’ cried poor Hal.
But passion was boiling in the little woman’s heart, and
she would not hear the boy’s petition. ‘ You only abet
him, sir ! ’ she cried. ‘ If I had to do it myself, it should
be done ! ’ And Harry, with sadness and wrath in his
countenance, left the room by the door through which
Mr. Ward and his brother had just issued.
The widow sank down on a great chair near it, and sat
a while vacantly looking at the fragments of the broken
cup. Then she inclined her head towards the door —
one of half a dozen of carved mahogany which the colonel
had brought from Europe. For a while there was silence :
then a loud outcry, wliich made the poor mother start.
In another minute, Mr. Ward came out, bleeding from
a great wound on his head, and behind him Harry, with
flaring eyes, and brandishing a little couteau de chasse
of his grandfather, which hung, with others of the colonel’s
weapons, on the library wall.
‘ I don’t care. I did it,’ says Harry. ‘ I couldn’t see
this fellow strike my brother ; and, as he lifted his hand,
I flung the great ruler at him. I couldn’t help it. I won’t
bear it ; and, if one lifts a hand to me or my brother, I’ll
have his life,’ shouts Harry, brandishing the hanger.
The widow gave a great gasp and a sigh as she looked
at the young champion and his victim. She must have
suffered terribly during the few minutes of the boys’
absence ; and the stripes which she imagined had been
inflicted on the elder had smitten her own heart. She
longed to take both boys to it. She was not angry now%
Very likely she was delighted with the thought of the
younger’s prow^ess and generosity. ‘ You are a very
naughty disobedient child,’ she said, in an exceedingly
peaceable voice. ‘ My poor Mr. Ward ! What a rebel,
to strike you I Papa’s great ebony ruler, was it ? Lay
54
THE VIRGINIANS
down that hanger, child. ’Twas General Webb gave it
to my papa after the siege of Lille. Let me bathe your
wound, my good Mr. Ward, and thank Heaven it was
no worse. Mountain ! Go fetch me some court-plaster
out of the middle drawer in the japan cabinet. Here
comes George. Put on your coat and waistcoat, child !
You were going to take your punishment, sir, and that is
suf&cient. Ask pardon, Harry, of good Mr. Ward, for
your wicked rebellious spirit, — I do, with all my heart,
I am sure. And guard against your passionate nature,
child — and pray to be forgiven. My son, oh, my son ! ’
Here, with a burst of tears w^hich she could no longer
control, the little woman threw herself on the neck of her
eldest born ; whilst Harry, laying the hanger down, went
up very feebly to Mr. Ward, and said, ‘ Indeed, I ask your
pardon, sir. I couldn’t help it ; on my honour I couldn’t ;
nor bear to see my brother struck.’
The widow was scared, as after her embrace she looked
up at George’s pale face. In reply to her eager caresses,
he coldly kissed her on the forehead, and separated from
her. ‘ You meant for the best, mother,’ he said, ‘ and
I was in the wrong. But the cup is broken ; and all the
king’s horses and aU the king’s men cannot mend it. There — ■
put the fair side outwards on the mantelpiece, and the
wound wiU not show.’
Again Madam Esmond looked at the lad as he placed
the fragments of the poor cup on the ledge where it had
always been used to stand- Her power over him was
gone. He had dominated her. She was not sorry for
the defeat : for women like not only to conquer, but to be
conquered ; and from that day the young gentleman was
master at Castlewood. His mother admired him as he
went up to Harry, graciously and condescendingly gave
Hal his hand, and said, ‘ Thank you, brother ! ’ as if he
were a prince, and Harry a general who had helped him
in a great battle.
Then George w^ent up to Mr. Ward, who was still piteously
bathing his eye and forehead in the water. ‘ I ask pardon
for Hal’s violence, sir,’ George said, in great state. ‘ You
see, though we are very young, we are gentlemen, and
cannot brook an insult from strangers. I should have
submitted, as it w^as mamma’s desire ; but I am glad she
no longer entertains it.’
FAMILY JARS
57
‘ And pray, sir, who is to compensate me ? ’ says Mr.
Ward, ‘ who is to repair the insult done to me ? ’
‘ We are very young,’ says George, with another of his
old-fashioned bows : ^ we shall be fifteen soon. Any
compensation that is usual amongst gentlemen ’
‘ This, sir, to a minister of the Word ! ’ bawls out Ward,
starting up, and who knew perfectly well the lads’ skill
in fence, having a score of times been foiled by the pair of
them.
‘ You are not a clergyman yet. We thought you might
like to be considered as a gentleman. We did not know.’
‘ A gentleman ! I am a Christian, sir ! ’ says Ward,
glaring furiously, and clenching his great fists.
‘ Well, well, if you won’t fight, why don’t you forgive ? ’
says Harry. ‘ If you don’t forgive, why don’t you fight ?
That’s what I call the horns of a dilemma ; ’ and he laughed
his frank, jolly laugh.
»
But this was nothing to the laugh a few days afterwards,
when, the quarrel having been patched up, along with poor
Mr, Ward’s eye, the unlucky tutor was holding forth
according to his custom. He tried to preach the boys
into respect for him, to reavraken the enthusiasm which
the congregation had felt for him ; he wrestled with their
manifest indifference, he implored Heaven to warm their
cold hearts again, and to lift up those who were falling
back. All was in vain. The widow wept no more at his
harangues, was no longer excited by his loudest tropes and
similes, nor appeared to be much frightened by the very
hottest menaces with which he peppered his discourse.
Nay, she pleaded headache, and would absent herself of an
evening, on which occasion the remainder of the little
congregation was very cold indeed. One day then, Ward,
still making desperate efforts to get back his despised
authority, was preaching on the beauty of subordination,
the present lax spirit of the age, and the necessity of obeying
our spiritual and temporal rulers. ‘ For why, my dear
friends,’ he nobly asked (he was in the habit of asking
immensely dull questions, and straightway answering
them with corresponding platitudes), ‘ why are governors
appointed, but that w’'e should be governed ? Why are
tutors engaged, but that children should be taught ? ’
(here a look at the boys). ‘ Why are rulers ’ Here
58
THE VIRGINIANS
he paused, looking with a sad, puzzled face at the young
gentlemen. He saw in their countenances the double
meaning of the unlucky word he had uttered, and stam-
mered, and thumped the table mth his fist. ‘ Why, I say,
are rulers ’
" Rulers,'' says George, looking at Harry.
^ Rulers 1 ’ says Hal, putting his hand to his eye, where
the poor tutor still bore marks of the late scuffle. Rulers,
o-ho ! It was too much. The boys burst out in an
explosion of laughter. Mrs. Mountain, who was full of fun,
could not help joining in the chorus ; and little Fanny,
who had always behaved very demurely and silently at
these ceremonies, crowed again, and clapped her little
hands at the others laughing, not in the least knowing
the reason why.
This could not be borne. Ward shut down the book
before liim ; in a few angry, but eloquent and manly words,
said he would speak no more in that place ; and left Oastle-
wood not in the least regretted by Madam Esmond, who
had doted on him three months before.
CHAPTER VI
THE VmOINIANS BEGIN TO SEE THE WORLD
TUB the departure of her unfor-
tunate spiritual adviser and chap-
lain, Madam Esmond and her
son seemed to be quite reconciled ;
but although George never spoke
of the quarrel with his mother,
it must have weighed upon the
boy’s mind very painfully, for
he had a fever soon after the last
recounted domestic occurrences,
during which illness his brain
once or twice wandered, when he
shrieked out, " Broken ! Broken !
It never, never, can be mended ! ’ to the silent terror of
his mother, who sat watching the poor child as he tossed
wakeful upon his midnight bed. His malady defied her
THEY BEGIN TO SEE THE WORLD 59
skill, and increased in spite of all the nostrums which the
good widow kept in her closet and administered so freely
to her people. She had to undergo another humiliation,
and one day little Mr. Dempster beheld her at his door on
horseback. She had ridden through the snow on her pony,
to implore him to give his aid to her poor boy. ‘ I shall
bury my resentment, madam,’ said he, ‘ as your ladyship
buried your pride. Please God, I may be time enough
to help my dear young pupil ! ’ So he put up his lancet,
and his little provision of medicaments; called his only
negro boy after him, shut up his lonely hut, and once more
returned to Castlewood. That night and for some days
afterwards it seemed very likely that poor Harry would
become heir of Castlewood ; but by Mr. Dempster’s skill
the fever was got over, the intermittent attacks diminished
in intensity, and George was restored almost to health
again. A change of air, a voyage even to England was
recommended, but the widow had quarrelled with her
children’s relatives there, and owned with contrition that
she had been too hasty. A journey to the north and east
was determined on, and the two young gentlemen, with
Mr, Dempster as their tutor, and a couple of servants to
attend them, took a voyage to New York, and thence up
the beautiful Hudson River to Albany, where they were
received by the first gentry of the province, and thence
into the French provinces, where they had the best recom-
mendations, and were hospitably entertained by the French
gentry. Harry camped with the Indians, and took furs,
and shot bears. George, who never cared for field sports,
and whose health was still delicate, was a special favourite
with the French ladies, who were accustomed to see very
few young English gentlemen speaking the French language
so readily as our young gentlemen. George especially
perfected his accent so as to be able to pass for a Frenchman.
He had the bel air completely, every person allowed. He
danced the minuet elegantly. He learned the latest
imported French catches and songs, and played them
beautifully on his violin, and would have sung them too
but that his voice broke at this time, and changed from
treble to bass ; and, to the envy of poor Harry, who was
absent on a bear-hunt, he even had an affair of honour
with a young ensign of the regiment of Auvergne, the
Chevalier de la Jaboti^re, whom he pinked in the shoulder.
60
THE VTRGINIAHS
and with whom he afterwards swore an eternal friend-
ship. Madame de Mouchy, the superintendent’s lady,
said the mother was blest who had such a son, and wrote
a complimentary letter to Madam Esmond upon Mr. George’s
behaviour. I fear Mr. Whitfield would not have been
over-pleased with the widow’s elation on hearing of her
son’s prowess.
When the lads returned home at the end of ten delightful
months, their mother was surprised at their growth and
improvement. George especially was so grown as to come
up to his younger-born brother. The boys could hardly
be distinguished one from another, especially when their
hair was powdered ; but that ceremony being too cumbrous
for country life, each of the gentlemen commonly wore his
own hair, George his raven black, and Harry his light
locks tied with a ribbon.
The reader who has been so kind as to look over the
first pages of the lad’s simple biography, must have observed
that Mr. George Esmond was of a jealous and suspicious
disposition, most generous and gentle, and incapable
of an untruth, and though too magnanimous to revenge,
almost incapable of forgiving any injury. George left
home with no good will towards an honourable gentleman,
whose name afterwards became one of the most famous
in the world ; and he returned from his journey not in
the least altered in his opinion of his mother’s and grand-
father’s friend. Mr. Washington, though then but just of
age, looked and felt much older. He always exhibited
an extraordinary simplicity and gravity : he had managed
his mother’s and his family’s affairs from a very early
age, and w^as trusted by all his friends and the gentry
of his county more respectfully than persons twice his
senior.
Mrs. Mountain, Madam Esmond’s friend and companion,
who dearly loved the two boys and her patroness, in spite
of many quarrels with the latter, and daily threats of
parting, was a most amusing droll letter- writer, and used
to write to the two boys on their travels. Now, Mrs.
Mountain w^as of a jealous turn likewise ; especially she had
a great turn for matchmaking, and fancied that everybody
had a design to marry everybody else. There scarce came
an unmarried man to Castlewood but Mountain imagined
the gentleman had an eye towards the mistress of the
THEY BEGIN TO SEE THE WORLD 61
mansion. She was positive that odious Mr. Ward intended
to make love to the widow, and pretty sure the latter
liked him. She knew that Mr. Washington wanted to
be married, was certain that such a shrewd young gentle-
man would look out for a rich wife, and as for the diffe-
rences of ages, what matter that the major (major was his
rank in the mihtia) was fifteen years younger than Madam
Esmond ? They were used to such marriages in the
family ; my lady her mother was how many years older
than the colonel when she married him ? — When she
married him and was so jealous that she never would let
the poor colonel out of her sight. The poor colonel ! after
his wife, he had been henpecked by his little daughter.
And she would take after her mother, and marry again,
be sure of that. Madam was a little chit of a woman,
not five feet in her highest head-dress and shoes, and
Mr. Washington a great tall man of six feet two. Great
tall men always married little chits of women : therefore,
Mr. W. must be looking after the widow. What could be
more clear than the deduction ?
She communicated these sage opinions to her boy, as
she called George, who begged her for Heaven’s sake
to hold her tongue. This she said she could do, but she
could not keep her eyes always shut ; and she narrated
a hundred circumstances which had occurred in the young
gentleman’s absence, and which tended, as she thought,
to confirm her notions. Had Mountain imparted these
pretty suspicions to his brother ? George asked sternly.
No. George was her boy; Harry was his mother’s boy.
‘ She likes him best, and I like you best, George,’ cries
Mountain. ^ Besides, if I were to speak to him, he would
tell your mother in a minute. Poor Harry can keep
nothing quiet, and then there would be a pretty quarrel
between madam and me ! ’
‘ I beg you to keep this quiet. Mountain,’ said Mr. George
with great dignity, ‘ or you and I shall quarrel too. Neither
to me nor to any one else in the world must you mention
such an absurd suspicion.’
Absurd ! Why absurd ? Mr. Washington was con-
stantly with the widow. His name was for ever in her
mouth. She was never tired of pointing out his virtues
and examples to her sons. She consulted him on every
question respecting her estate and its management. She
62
THE VIRGINIANS
never bought a horse or sold a barrel of tobacco without
his opinion. There was a room at Castlewood regularly
called Mr. Washington’s room. He actually leaves his
clothes here and his portmanteau when he goes away.
‘ Ah ! George, George ! One day will come when he
wonH go away,’ groaned Mountain, who, of course, always
returned to the subject of which she was forbidden to speak.
Meanwhile Mr. George adopted towards his mother’s
favourite a frigid courtesy, at which the honest gentleman
chafed but did not care to remonstrate, or a stinging
sarcasm, which he would break through as he would burst
through so many brambles on those hunting excursions
in wMch he and Harry Warrington rode so constantly
together; whilst George, retreating to his tents, read
mathematics, and French, and Latin, and sulked in his
book-room more and more lonely.
Harry was away from home with some other sporting
friends (it is to be feared the young gentleman’s acquaint-
ances were not all as eligible as Mr. Washington), when the
latter came to pay a visit at Castlewood. He was so
peculiarly tender and kind to the mistress there, and
received by her with such special cordiality, that George
Warrington’s jealousy had wellnigh broken out in open
rupture. But the visit was one of adieu, as it appeared.
Major Washington was going on a long and dangerous
journey, quite to the western Virginia frontier and beyond
it. The French had been for some time past making
inroads into our territory. The Government at home, as
well as those of Virginia and Pennsylvania, were alarmed at
this aggressive spirit of the lords of Canada and Louisiana.
Some of our settlers had already been driven from their
holdings by Frenchmen in arms, and the governors of the
British provinces were desirous to stop their incursions,
or at any rate to protest against their invasion.
We chose to hold our American colonies by a law that
was at least convenient for its framers. The maxim was,
that whoever poss^sed the coast had a right to all the
territory inland as far as the Pacific ; so that the British
charters only laid down the limits of the colonies from
north to south, leaving them quite free from east to west.
The French, meanwhile, had their colonies to the north
and south, and aimed at connecting them by the Mississippi
and the St. La'v^Tence and the great intermediate lakes
THEY BEGIN TO SEE THE WORLD 63
and waters lying to tlie westward of the British possessions.
In the year 1748, though peace was signed between the
two European kingdoms, the colonial question remained
unsettled, to be opened again when either party should be
strong enough to urge it. In the year 1763, it came to an
issue, on the Ohio river, where the British and French
settlers met. To be sure, there existed other people besides
French and British, who thought they had a title to the
territory about which the children of their White Fathers
were battling, namely, the native Indians and proprietors
of the soil. But the logicians of St. James’s and Versailles
wisely chose to consider the matter in dispute as a European
and not a Red-man’s question, eliminating him from the
argument, but employing his tomahawk as it might serve
the turn of either litigant.
A company, called the Ohio Company, having grants
from the Virginia government of lands along that river,
found themselves invaded in their settlements by French
military detachments, who roughly ejected the Britons
from their holdings. These latter applied for protection
to Mr. Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, who
determined upon sending an ambassador to the French
commanding ofScer on the Ohio, demanding that the
French should desist from their inroads upon the territories
of his Majesty King George.
Young Mr. Waslungton jumped eagerly at the chance of
distinction which this service afforded him, and volunteered
to leave his home and his rural and professional pursuits in
Virginia, to carry the governor’s message to the French
officer. Taking a guide, an interpreter, and a few atten-
dants, and following the Indian tracks in the fall of the
year 1753, the intrepid young envoy made his way from
Williamsburg almost to the shores of Lake Erie, and
found the French commander at Fort le Boeuf. That
officer’s reply was brief : his orders were to hold the place
and drive all the English from it. The French avowed
their intention of taking possession of the Ohio. And with
this rough answer the messenger from Virginia had to
return through danger and difficulty, across lonely forest
and frozen river, shaping his course by the compass, and
camping at night in the snow by the forest fires.
Harry Warrington cursed his ill-fortune that he had been
absent from home on a cock-fight, when he might have
64
THE VIRGINIANS
had a chance of sport so much nobler ; and on his return
from his expedition, which he had conducted \vith an heroic
energy and simplicity, Major Washington was a greater
favourite than ever with the lady of Castlewood. She
pointed him out as a model to both her sons. ‘ Ah, Harry ! ’
she would say, ' think of you with your cock-fighting and
your racing matches, and the major away there in the
wilderness, watching the French, and battling with the
frozen rivers ! Ah, George ! learning may be a very good
thing, but I wish my eldest son were doing something in
the service of his country ! ’
" I desire no better than to go home and seek for employ-
ment, ma’am,’ says George. ‘ You surely would not have
me serve under Mr. Washington, in his new regiment, or
ask a commission from Mh. Dinwiddie ? ’
‘ An Esmond can only serve with the king’s commission,’
says madam, ‘ and as for asking a favour from Mr. Lieu-
tenant-Governor Dinwiddie, I would rather beg my bread.’
Mr. Washington was at this time raising such a regiment
as, with the scanty pay and patronage of the Virginian
government, he could get together, and proposed, with the
help of these men of war, to put a more peremptory veto
upon the French invaders than the solitary ambassador
had been enabled to lay. A small force under another
officer, Colonel Trent, had been already dispatched to the
west, with orders to fortify themselves so as to be able
to resist any attack of the enemy. The French troops,
greatly outnumbering ours, came up with the English out-
posts, who were fortifying themselves at a place on the
confines of Penmylvania where the great city of Pittsburg
now stands. A Virginian officer with but forty men was
in no condition to resist twenty times that number of
Canadians, who appeared before his incomplete works. He
was suffered to draw back without molestation ; and the
French, taking possession of his fort, strengthened it, and
christened it by the name of the Canadian governor, Du
Quesne. Up to this time no actual blow of war had been
struck. The troops representing the hostile nations were
in presence — ^the guns were loaded, but no one as yet had
cried ‘ Fire It was strange that, in a savage forest of
Pennsylvania, a young Virginian officer should fire a shot,
and waken up a war which was to last for sixty years,
which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe,
THEY BEGIN TO SEE THE WOELB
65
to cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from
us, and create the great Western republic ; to rage over
the Old World when extinguished in the New ; and,
of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest, to leave
the prize of the greatest fame with him who struck the
first blow !
He little knew of the fate in store for him. A simple
gentleman, anxious to serve his king and do his duty, he
volunteered for the first service, and executed it with
admirable fidelity. In the ensuing year he took the com-
mand of the small body of provincial troops, with which he
marched to repel the Frenchmen. He came up with their
advanced guard and fired upon them, killing their leader.
After this he had himself to fall back with his troops, and
was compelled to capitulate to the superior French force.
On the 4th of July, 1754, the colonel marched out with
his troops from the little fort where he had hastily en-
trenched himself (and which they called Fort Necessity),
gave up the place to the conqueror, and took his way
home.
His command was over : his regiment disbanded after
the fruitless, inglorious march and defeat. Saddened and
humbled in spirit, the young of&cer presented himself after
a while to his old friends at Castlewood. He was very
young ; before he set forth on his first campaign he may
have indulged in exaggerated hopes of success, and uttered
them. " I was angry when I parted from you,’ he said to
George Warrington, holding out his hand, which the other
eagerly took. ‘ You seemed to scorn me and my regiment,
George. I thought you laughed at us, and your ridicule
made me angry. I boasted too much of what we would
do.’
‘ Nay, you have done your best, George,’ says the other,
who quite forgot his previous jealousy in his old comrade’s
misfortune. ‘ Everybody knows that a hundred and fifty
starving men with scarce a round of ammunition left,
could not face five times their number perfectly armed,
and everybody who knows Mr. Washington knows that he
would do his duty. Harry and I saw the French in Canada
last year. They obey but one will : in our provinces each
governor has his own. They were royal troops the French
sent against you . . .’
‘‘ Oh but that some of ours were here ! ’ cries Madam
VIRGINIANS I)
THE VIRGINIANS
Esmond, tossing her head up. ‘ I promise you a few good
English regiments would make the white-coats run.’
* You think nothing of the provincials : and I must say
nothing now we have been so unlucky,’ said the colonel
gloomily. ‘ You made much of me when I was here before.
Don’t you remember what victories you prophesied for
me — ^how much I boasted myself very likely over your
good wine ? AU those fine dreams are over now. ’Tis
kind of your ladyship to receive a poor beaten fellow as
you do : ’ and the young soldier hung down his head.
George Warrington, with his extreme acute sensibility,
was touched at the other’s emotion and simple testimony
of sorrow under defeat. He was about to say something
friendly to Mr. Washington, had not his mother, to whom
the colonel had been speaking, replied herself : ‘ Kind of
us to receive you, Colonel Washington ! ’ said the widow.
‘ I never heard that when men were unhappy, our sex
were less their fri^ds.’
And she made the colonel a very fine curtsy, which
straightway caused her son to be more jealous of him
than ever.
CHAPTER VII
PBEPAEATIONS FOR WAR
' TJBBLY no man can have
better claims to sympathy
than bravery, youth, good
looks, and misfortune.
Madam Esmond might
have had twenty sons,
and yet had a right to
admire her young soldier.
Mr. Washington’s room
was more than ever Mr.
Washington’s room now.
She raved about him and
praised him in all com-
panies. She more than
ever pointed out liis ex-
cellences to her sons ; contrasting his sterling qualities
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR
07
mth. Harry’s love of pleasure (the vild boy !) and George’s
listless musings oyer his books. George was not disposed
to like Mr. Washington any better for his mother’s extra-
vagant praises. He coaxed the jealous demon within him
until he must have become a perfect pest to himself and
all the friends round about him. He uttered jokes so deep
that his simple mother did not know their meaning, but
sat bevdldered at his sarcasms, and powerless what to
think of his moody, saturnine humour.
Meanwhile, public events were occurring which were to
influence the fortunes of all our homely family. The (juarrel
between the French and English North Americans from
being a provincial, had grown to be a national, quarrel.
Reinforcements from France had already arrived in Canada ;
and English troops were expected in Virginia. ‘ Alas ! my
dear friend ! ’ wrote Madame la Presidente de Mouchy,
from Quebec, to her young friend George Warrington.
‘ How contrary is the destiny to us. I see you quitting
the embrace of an adored mother to precipitate yourself
in the arms of Bellona. I see you pass wounded after
combats. I hesitate almost to wish victory to our lilies
when I behold you ranged under the banners of the Leopard.
There are enmities which the heart does not recognize —
ours assuredly are at peace among these tumults. All here
love and salute you as well as Monsieur the Bear-hunter,
your brother (that cold Hippolyte who preferred the chase
to the soft conversation of our ladies 1). Your friend, your
enemy, the Chevalier de la Jabotiere, burns to meet on
the field of Mars his generous rival. M. du Quesne spoke
of you last night at supper. M. du Quesne, my husband,
send affectuous remembrances to their young friend, with
which are ever joined those of your sincere Presidente de
Mouchy.’
‘ The banner of the Leopard,’ of which George’s fair
correspondent wrote, was, indeed, flung out to the winds,
and a number of the king’s soldiers were rallied round it.
It was resolved to WTest from the French all the conquests
they had made upon British dominion. A couple of regi-
ments were raised and paid by the king in America, and
a fleet with a couple more was dispatched from home
under an experienced commander. In February, 1755,
Commodore Keppel, in the famous ship Centurion, in which
Anson had made his voyage round the Avorld, anchored
68
THE VIRGINIANS
in Hampton Roads with two ships of war under his com-
mand, and having on board General Braddock, his staff,’
and a part of his troops. Mr. Braddock was appointed
by the duke. A hundred years ago the Duke of (Cumber-
land was called The Duke 'par excelkTice in England — ^as
another famous warrior has since been called. Not so
great a duke certainly was that first-named prince as his
party esteemed him, and surely not so bad a one as his
enemies have painted him. A fleet of transports speedily
followed Prince William’s general, bringing stores, and men,
and money in plenty.
The great man landed his troops at Alexandria on the
Potomac river, and repaired to Annapolis in Maryland,
where he ordered the governors of the different colonies
to meet him in council, urgit^ them each to call upon their
respective provinces to help the common cause in this strait.
The arrival of the general and his little army caused a
mighty excitement all through the provinces, and nowhere
greater than at Castlewood. Harry was off forthwith to
see the troops under canvas at Alexandria. The sight of
their lines delighted him, and the inspiring music of their
fifes and drums. He speedily made acquaintance with the
officers of both regiments ; he longed to join in the expedi-
tion upon which they were bound, and was a welcome
guest at their mess.
Madam Esmond was pleased that her sons should have
an opportunity of enjoying the society of gentlemen of
good fashion from England. She had no doubt their com-
pany was improving, that the English gentlemen were very
different from the horse-racing, cock-fighting Virginian
squires, with whom Master Harry would associate, and the
lawyers, and pettifoggers, and to^-eaters at the lieutenant-
governor’s table. Madam Esmond had a very keen eye
for detecting flatterers in other folks’ houses. Against the
little knot of official people at Williamsburg, she was
especially satirical, and had no patience with their etiquettes
and squabbles for precedence.
As for the company of the king’s officers, Mr. Harry
and his elder brother both smiled at their mamma’s com-
pliments to the elegance and propriety of the gentlemen
of the camp. If the good lady had but known all, if she
could but have heard their jokes and the songs which
they sang over their wine and punch, if she could have
PREPAEATIOHS FOR WAR
seen the condition of many of them as they were carried
away to their lodgings, she -would scarce have been so
ready to recommend their company to her sons. Men and
officers swaggered the country round, and frightened the
peaceful farm and village folk vith their riot ; the general
raved and stormed against his troops for their disorder;
against the provincials for their traitorous niggardliness ;
the soldiers took possession almost as of a conquered
country, they scorned the provincials, they insulted the
wives even of their Indian allies, -ivho had come to join
the English warriors, upon their arrival in America, and
to march with them against the French. The general was
compelled to forbid the Indian women his camp. Amazed
and outraged, their husbands retired ; and but a few
months afterwards their services were lost to him, when
their aid would have been most precious.
Some stories against the gentlemen of the camp. Madam
Esmond might have heard, but she would have none of
them. Soldiers would be soldiers, that everybody knew ;
those officers who came over to Castlewood on her son’s
invitation were most polite gentlemen, and such indeed
was the case. The widow received them most graciously,
and gave them the best sport the country afforded. Pre-
sently, the general himself sent polite messages to the
mistress of Castlewood. His father had served -with hers
under the glorious Marlborough, and Colonel Esmond’s
name was still known and respected in England. With
her ladyship’s permission. General Braddock would have
the honour of waiting upon her at Castlewood, and paying
his respects to the daughter of so meritorious an officer.
If she had known the cause of Mr. Braddock’s politeness,
perhaps his compliments would not have charmed Madam
Esmond so much. The commander-in-chief held levees at
Alexandria, and among the gentry of the country, who
paid him their respects, were our twins of Castlewood, who
mounted their best nags, took with them their last London
suits, and, with their two negro boys, in smart liveries,
behind them, rode in state to w^ait upon the great man.
He was sulky and angry -with the provincial gentry, and
scarce took any notice of the young gentlemen, only asking,
casually, of his aide de camp at ffinner, who the young
Squire Gawkeys were in blue and gold and red waistcoats ?
Mr. Dinwiddle, the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, the
70
THE VIEGINIANS
Agent from Pennsylvania, and a few more gentlemen,
happened to be dining with his excellency. ‘ Oh ! ’ said
Mr. Dinwiddie, ‘ those are the sons of the Princess Poca-
hontas,’ on which, with a tremendous oath, the general
asked, ‘ Who the deuce was she ? ’
Pinwiddie, who did not love her, having indeed under-
gone a hundred pertnesses from the imperious little lady,
now gave a disrespectful and ridiculous account of Madam
Esmond, made merry with her pomposity and immense
pretensions, and entertained General Braddock with anec-
dotes regarding her, until his excellency fell asleep.
When he woke, Din'vviddie was gone, but the Phila-
delphia gentleman was still at table, deep in conversation
with the officers tliere present. The general took up the
talk where it had been left when he fell asleep, and spoke
of Madam Esmond in curt, disrespectful terms, such as
soldiers were in the habit of using in those days ; and
asking, again, what was the name of the old fool about
whom Dinwiddie had been talking, he then broke into
expressions of contempt and wrath against the gentry, and
the country in general.
Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia repeated the widow’s name,
took quite a different view of her character from that
Mr. Pinwiddie had given, seemed to know a good deal
about her, her father, and her estate ; as, indeed, he did
about every man or subject which came under discussion ;
explained to the general that Madam Esmond had beeves,
and horses, and stores in plenty, which might be very
useful at the present juncture, and recommended him to
conciliate her by all means. The general had already made
up his mind that Mr. Franklin was a very shrewd, intelli-
gent person, and graciously ordered an aide de camp to
invite the two young men to the next day’s dinner. When
they appeared he was very pleasant and good-natured ;
the gentlemen of the general’s family made much of them.
They behaved, as became persons of their name, wdth
modesty and good breeding ; they returned home delighted
with their entertainment, nor was their mother less pleased
at the civihties w^hich his excellency had shown to her
boys. In reply to Braddock’s message, Madam Esmond
penned a billet in her best style, acknowledging his polite-
ness, and begging his excellency to fix the time when she
might have the honour to receive him at Castle wood.
PREPAEATIONS FOR WAR
71
We may be sure that the arrival of the army and the
approaching campaign formed the subject of continued
conversation in the Castlewood family. To make the
campaign was the dearest wish of Harry’s Hfe. He dreamed
only of war and battle ; he was for ever with the officers
at Williamsburg ; he scoured and cleaned and polished all
the guns and swords in the house ; he renewed the amuse-
ments of his childhood, and had the negroes under arms.
His mother, who had a gallant spirit, knew that the time
was come when one of her boys must leave her and serve
the king. She scarce dared to think on w^hom the lot
should fall. She admired and respected the elder, but she
felt that she loved the younger boy with all the passion
of her heart.
Eager as Harry was to be a soldier, and with all his
thoughts bent on that glorious scheme, he too scarcely
dared to touch on the subject nearest his heart. Once or
tvice w^hen he ventured on it with George, the latter’s
countenance wore an ominous look. Harry had a feudal
attachment for his elder brother, worshipped him with an
extravagant regard, and in all things gave way to him as
the chief. So Harry saw, to his infinite terror, how George,
too, in his grave way, was occupied with military matters.
George had the wars of Eugene and Marlborough down
from his bookshelves, all the military books of his grand-
father, and the most warlike of Plutarch’s Lives. He and
Dempster were practising with the foils again. The old
Scotchman was an adept in the military art, though some-
what shy of saying where he learned it.
Madam Esmond made her two boys the bearers of the
letter in reply to his excellency’s message, accompanying
her note with such large and handsome presents for the
general’s staff and the officers of the two royal regiments,
as caused the general more than once to thank Mr. Franklin
for having been the means of bringing this welcome ally
into the camp. ‘ Would not one of the young gentlemen
like to see the campaign ? ’ the general asked. ‘ A friend
of theirs, who often spoke of them — ^Mr. Washington, who
had been unlucky in the affair of last year — ^had already
promised to join him as aide de camp, and his excellency
W'ould gladly take another young Virginian gentleman into
his family.’ Harry’s eyes brightened and his face flushed
72
THE VntaiNIAHS
at this offer, * He would like with all his heart to go !
he cried out, George said, looking hard at his youngei
brother, that one of them would be proud to attend hij
excellency, whilst it would be the other’s duty to tak<
care of their mother at home. Harry allowed his senior
to speak, ffis will was even still obedient to George’s
However much he desired to go, he would not pronounce
until George had declared himself. He longed so for the
campaign, that the actual wish made him timid. He darec
not speak on the matter as he went home with George
They rode for miles in silence, or strove to talk upor
ineiifferent subjects ; each knowing what was passing ir
the other’s mind, and afraid to bring the awful questior
to an issue.
On their arrival at home the boys told their mother o
General Braddock’s offer. ^ I knew it must happen,’ she
said ; ‘ at such a crisis in the country our family musi
come forward. Have you — ^have you settled yet which o:
you is to leave me ? ’ and she looked anxiously from one
to another, dreading to hear either name.
‘ The youngest ought to go, mother ; of course I oughi
to go I ’ cries Harry, turning very red.
‘ Of course, he ought,’ said Mrs. Mountain, who wae
present at their talk.
‘ There ! Mountain says so ! I told you so ! ’ again cries
Harry, with a sidelong look at George.
“ The head of the family ought to go, mother,’ says
George, sadly.
‘ No ! no ! you are ill, and have never recovered yom
fever. Ought he to go. Mountain ? ’
‘ You would make the best soldier, I know that, dearesi
Hal. You and George Washington are great friends, and
could travel well together, and he does not care for me
nor I for him, however much he is admired in the family
But you see, ’tis the law of Honour, my Harry.’ (He here
spoke to his brother with a voice of extraordinary kindness
and tenderness.) ‘ The grief I have had in this mattei
has been that I must refuse thee. I must go. Had Fate
given you the benefit of that extra half-hour of life whict
I have had before you, it would have been your lot, and
you would have claimed your right to go first, — ^you know
you would.’
‘ Yes, George,’ said poor Harry, ‘ I own I should.’
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR
73
‘ You stay at home, and take care of Castlewood
and our mother. If anything happens to me, you are
here to fill my place. I would like to give way, my dear,
as you, I know, would lay dovii your life to serve me.
But each of us must do his duty. "VMiat would our grand-
father say if he were here ? ’
The mother looked proudly at her two sons. ‘ My papa
would say that his boys were gentlemen,’ faltered Madam
Esmond, and left the young men, not choosing, perhaps,
to show the emotion which was filling her heart. It was
speedily knowm amongst the servants that Mr. George was
going on the campaign. Dinah, George’s foster-mother,
was loud in her lamentations at losing him ; Phillis, Harry’s
old nurse, w’as as noisy because Master George, as usual,
was preferred over Master Harry. Sady, George’s servant,
made preparations to follow his master, bragging incessantly
of the deeds w’hich he would do, while Gumbo, Harry’s
boy, pretended to whimper at being left behind, though,
at home. Gumbo was anjrthing but a fire-eater.
But, of all in the house, Mrs. Mountain was the most
angry at George’s determination to go on the campaign.
She had no patience with him. He did not know^ what
he was doing by leaving home. She begged, implored,
insisted that he should alter his determination ; and vow'ed
that nothing but mischief would come from his departure.
George -was surprised at the pertinacity of the good
lady’s opposition. ‘ I know, Mountain,’ said he, ‘ that
Harry would be the better soldier ; but, after all, to go
is my duty.’
‘ To stay is your duty ! ’ says Mountain, with a stamp
of her foot.
‘ Why, did not my mother own it when w^e talked of
the matter just now ? ’
‘ Your mother ! ’ says Mrs. Mountain, with a most gloomy,
sardonic laugh ; ‘ your mother, my poor child ! ’
‘ What is the meaning of that mournful countenancci
Mountain ? ’
‘ It may be that your mother wishes you aw'ay* George ! *
Mrs, Mountain continued, W’^agging her head* ‘ It may be,
my poor deluded boy, that you will find a father-in-law^
when you come back.’
‘ What in Heaven do you mean ? ’ cried George, the
blood rushing into his face.
1)3
74
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Do you suppose I have uo eyes, and cannot see what
is going on ? I tell you, child, that Colonel Washington
wants a rich -wife. When you are gone, he will ask. your
mother to marry him, and you will find him master here
when you come back. That is why you ought not to go
away, you poor, unhappy, simple boy ! Don’t you see how
fond she is of him ? how much she makes of him ? how
she is always holding him up to you, to Harry, to every-
body who comes here ? ’
‘ But he is going on the campaign, too,’ cried George.
‘ He is going on the marrying campaign, child ! ’ insisted
the vidow.
‘ Nay ; General Braddock himself told me that Mr.
Washin^on had accepted the appointment of aide de
camp.’
‘ An artifice 1 an artifice to blind you, my poor child ! ’
cries Mountain. ‘ He vill be wounded and come back —
you will see if he does not. I have proofs of what I say
to you — ^proofs under his own hand — look here 1 ’ And
she took from her pocket a piece of paper in Mr. Washing-
ton’s well-known handwriting.
‘ How came you by this paper ? ’ asked George, turning
ghastly pale.
‘ I — I found it in the major’s chamber ! ’ says Mrs.
Mountain, with a shamefaced look.
‘ You read the private letters of a guest staying in our
house ? ’ cried George. ‘ For shame 1 I will not look
at the paper.’ And he flung it from him on to the fire
before Mm.
* I could not help it, George ; ’twas by chance, I give
you my word, by the merest chance. You know Governor
Dinwiddie is to have the major’s room, and the state-room
is got ready for Mr. Braddock, and we are expecting ever
so much company, and I had to take the things which
the major leaves here — ^he treats the house just as if it
was Ms own already — ^into Ms new room, and this half-
sheet of paper fell out of his writing-book, and I just gave
one look at it by the merest chance, and when I saw what
it was it was my duty to read it.’
‘ Oh, you are a martyr to duty, Mountain ! ’ George
said, grimly. ‘ I dare say Mrs. Bluebeard thought it was
her duty to look through the keyhole.’
‘I never did look through the keyhole, George. It’s
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR
75
a shame you should say so ! I, who have watched, and
tended, and nursed you, like a mother ; who have sat up
whole weeks with you in fevers, and carried you from
your bed to the sofa in these arms. There, sir, I don’t
want you there mw. My dear Mountain, indeed ! Don’t
tell me ! You fly into a passion, and call names, and wound
my feelings, who have loved you like your mother — like
your mother ? — I only hope she may love you half as well.
I say you are all ungrateful. My Mr. Mountain was a
wTetch, and every one of you is as bad.’
There was but a smouldering log or two in the fireplace,
and no doubt Mountain saw that the paper was in no danger
as it lay amongst the ashes, or she w’ould have seized it
at the risk of burning her own fingers, and ere she uttered
the above passionate defence of her conduct. Perhaps
George was absorbed in his dismal thoughts ; perhaps his
jealousy overpowered him, for he did not resist any further
when she stooped down and picked up the paper.
‘ You should thank your stars, chfld, that I saved the
letter,’ cried she. ‘ See ! here are his own words, in his
great big handwriting like a clerk. It was not my fault that
he wrote them, or that I found them. Read for yourself,
I say, George Warrington, and be thankful that your
poor dear old Mounty is watching over you.’
Every word and letter upon the unlucky paper was
perfectly clear. George’s eyes could not help taking in
the contents of the document before him. ‘ Not a word
of this. Mountain,’ he said, giving her a frightful look.
‘ I — will return this paper to Mr. Washington.’
Mountain was scared at his face, at the idea of what
she had done, and what might ensue. When his mother,
with alarm in her countenance, asked him at dinner what
ailed him that he looked so pale ? ‘ Do you suppose,
madam,’ says he, filling himself a great bumper of wine,
‘ that to leave such a tender mother as you does not cause
me cruel grief ? ’
The good lady could not understand his words, his
strange, fierce looks, and stranger laughter. He bantered
aU at the table ; called to the servants and laughed at them,
and drank more and more. Each time the door was opened,
he turned towards it : and so did Mountain, with a guilty
notion that Mr. Washington would step in.
76
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH GEOEGE SUEFERS FROM A COMMON DISEASE
N the day appointed for
Madam Esmond’s enter-
tainment to the general,
the house of Castlewood
was set out with the
greatest splendour ; and
Madam Esmond arrayed
lierseK in a much more
magnificent dress than
she w''as accustomed to
wear. Indeed, she wish-
ed to do every honour
to her guest, and to
make the entertainment
— which in reality was
a sad one to her — ^as
pleasant as might be for her company. The general’s
new aide de camp was the first to arrive. The widow
received him in the covered gallery before the house.
He dismounted at the steps, and his servants led away
his horses to the w’eU-knouTi quarters. No young gentle-
man in the colony was better mounted or a better horse-
man than Mr. Washington.
For awhile ere the major retired to divest himself of his
riding-boots, he and his hostess paced the gallery in talk.
She had much to say to him ; she had to hear from him
a confirmation of his own appointment as aide de camp
to General Braddock, and to speak of her son’s approaching
departure. The negro servants bearing the dishes for the
approaching feast were passing perpetually as they talked.
They descended the steps down to the rough lawn in front
of the house, and paced awhile in the shade. Mr. Washing-
ton announced his excellency’s speedy approach, with
Mr. Franklin of Pennsylvania in his coach.
This Mr. Franklin had been a common printer’s boy,
Mrs. Esmond had heard ; a pretty pass things were coming
to when such persons rode in the coach of the commander-
in-chief I Mr, Washington said, a more shrewd and
A COMMON DISEASE
77
sensible gentleman never rode in coach or walked on foot.
Mrs. Esmond thought the major was too liberally disposed
towards this gentleman ; but Mr. Washington stoutly
maintained against the widow that the printer was a most
ingenious, useful, and meritorious man.
‘ I am glad, at least, that as my boy is going to make the
campaign, he will not be with tradesmen, but with gentle-
men, with gentlemen of honour and fashion,’ says Madam
Esmond, in her most stately manner.
Mr. Washington had seen the gentlemen of honour and
fashion over their cups, and perhaps thought that all
their sayings and doings w^ere not precisely such as would
tend to instruct or edify a young man on his entrance
into life ; but he wisely chose to tell no tales out of school,
and said that Harry and George, now they were coming
into the world, must take their share of good and bad,
and hear w^hat both sorts had to say.
‘ To be with a veteran officer of the finest army in the
world,’ faltered the widow ; ‘ with gentlemen who have been
bred in the midst of the Court ; with friends of his royal
highness the duke ’
The widow’s friend only^ inclined his head. He did not
choose to allow his countenance to depart from its usual
handsome gravity.
‘And with you, dear Colonel Washington, by whom
my father always set such store. You don’t know how
much he trusted in you. You will take care of my boy,
sir, will not you ? You are but five years older, yet I trust
to you more than to his seniors : my father always told
the children, I always bade them, to look up to Mr. Wash-
ington,’
‘ You know I would have done anything to win Colonel
Esmond’s favour. Madam, how much would I not venture
to merit his daughter’s ? ’
The gentleman bowed with not too ill a grace. The
lady blushed, and dropped one of the lowest curtsies.
(Madam Esmond’s curtsy was considered unrivalled over
the whole* province.) ‘Mr. Washington,’ she said, ‘will
be always sure of a mother’s affection, whilst he gives
so much of his to her children.’ And so saying she gave
him her hand, which he kissed with profound politeness.
The little lady presently re-entered her mansion, leaning
upon the tall young officer’s arm. Here they were joined
78
THE VIRGINIANS
by George, who came to them, accurately powdered and
richly attired, saluting his parent and his friend alike
with low and respectful bows. Nowadays, a young
man walks into his mother’s room with hob-nailed high-
lows, and a wideawake on his head ; and instead of
making her a bow, puffs a cigar into her face.
But George, though he made the lowest possible bow
to Mr. Washington and his mother, was by no means in
good humour with either of them. A polite smile played
round the lower part of his countenance, whilst watchful-
ness and -vvTath glared out from the two upper windows.
What had been said or done ? Nothing that might not
have been performed or uttered before the most decent,
polite, or pious company. Why then should Madam
Esmond continue to blush, and the brave colonel to look
somewhat red, as he shook his young friend’s hand.
The colonel asked Mr. George if he had* had good sport ?
^ No,’ says George, curtly. ‘ Have you ? ’ And then he
looked at the picture of his father, which hung in the parlour.
The colonel, not a talkative man ordinarily, straightway
entered into a long description of his sport, and described
where he had been in the morning, and what woods he
had hunted with the king’s officers ; how many birds
they had shot, and what game they had brought down.
Though not a jocular man ordinarily, the colonel made
a long description of Mr. Braddock’s heavy person and
great boots, as he floundered through the Virginian woods,
hunting, as they called it, with a pack of dogs gathered
from various houses, with a pack of negroes barking as
loud as the dogs, and actually shooting the deer when they
came in sight of him. ‘ Great God, sir ! ’ says Mr. Braddock,
puflfing and blowing, ‘what would Sir Robert have said
in Norfolk, to see a man hunting with a fowling-piece in
his hand, and a pack of dogs actually laid on to a turkey ! ’
‘ Indeed, colonel, you are vastly comical this afternoon ! ’
cries Madam Esmond, with a neat little laugh, whilst her
son listened to the story, looking more glum than ever.
‘ What Sir Robert is there at Norfolk ? Is he one of the
newly arrived army-gentlemen ? ’
‘The general meant Norfolk at home, madam, not
Norfolk in Virginia,’ said Colonel Washington. ‘ Mr.
Braddock had been talking of a visit to Sir Robert Walpole,
who lived in that county, and of the great hunts the old
A COMMON DISEASE
79
minister kept there, and of his grand palace, and his pictures
at Houghton. I should like to see a good field and
a good fox-chase at home better than any sight in the
world,’ the honest sportsman added with a sigh.
‘ Nevertheless, there is good sport here, as I was saying,’
said young Esmond, with a sneer.
^ 'V^at sport ? ’ cries the other, looking at him.
‘ Why, sure you know, without looking at me so fiercely,
and stamping your foot, as if you were going to charge
me with the foils. Are you not the best sportsman of the
countryside ? Are there not all the fish of the field, and
the beasts of the trees, and the fowls of the sea — ^no — ^the
fish of the trees, and the beasts of the sea — ^and the — ^bah 1
You know what I mean. I mean shad, and salmon, and
rockfish, and roedeer, and hogs, and buffaloes, and bisons,
and elephants, for what I know, I’m no sportsman.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Mr. Washington, with a look of
scarcely repressed scorn.
‘ Yes, I understand you. I am a milksop. I have been
bred at my mamma’s knee. Look at these pretty apron-
strings, colonel I Who would not like to be tied to them ?
See of what a charming colour they are 1 I remember
when they were black — ^that was for my grandfather.’
‘ And who would not mourn for such a gentleman ? ’
said the colonel, as the widow, surprised, looked at her son.
‘ And, indeed, I wish my grandfather were here, and
would resurge, as he promises to do on his tombstone;
and would bring my father, the ensign, with him.’
‘ Ah, Harry I ’ cries Mrs. Esmond, bursting into tears,
as at this juncture her second son entered the room — ^in just
such another suit, gold corded frock, braided waistcoat,
silver-hilted sword, and solitaire, as that which his elder
brother wore. ‘ 0 Harry, Harry ! ’ cries Madam Esmond,
and flies to her younger son.
‘ What is it, mother ? ’ asks Harry, taking her in his
arms. ‘ What is the matter, colonel ? ’
‘ Upon my life, it would puzzle me to say,’ answered the
colonel, biting his lips.
‘ A mere question, Hal, about pink ribbons, which
I think vastly becoming to our mother ; as, no doubt,
the colonel does.’
‘ Sir, wall you please to speak for yourself ? ’ cried the
colonel, bustling up, and then sinking his voice again.
80
THE VIROmiANS
^ He speaks too much for himself/ wept the widow*
protest I don’t any more know the source of these
tears than the source of the Nile,’ said George ; * and if
the picture of my father were to begin to cry, I should
almost as much wonder at the paternal tears, "^at have
I uttered ? An allusion to ribbons ! Is there some
poisoned pin in them, which has been stuck into my
mother’s heart by a guilty fiend of a London mantua-
maker ? I professed to wish to be led in these lovely reins
all my life long,’ and he turned a pirouette on his scarlet
heels.
^ George Warrington, what devil’s dance are you
dancing now ? ’ asked Harry, who loved his mother, who
loved Mr. Washington, but who, of all creatures, loved
and admired his brother George.
‘My dear child, you do not understand dancing — you
<^re not for the politer arts — you can get no more music
out of a spinet than by pulling a dead hog by the ear.
By nature you w’ere made for a man — a man of war —
I do not mean a seventy-four, Ck>lonel George, like that
hulk which brought the bulking Mr. Braddook into our
river. His excellency, too, is a man of warlike turn,
a follower of the sports of the field. I am a milksop, as
I have had the honour to say.’
‘ You never showed it yet. You beat that great Maryland
man was twice your size,’ breaks out Harry.
‘ Under compulsion, Harry. ’Tis tupto, my lad, or else
’tis tuptormi, as thy breech well knew when we followed
school. But I am of a quiet turn, and would never lift my
hand to pull a trigger, no, nor a nose, nor anything but a
rose,’ and here he took and handled one of Madam Esmond’s
bright pink apron ribbons. ‘I hate sporting, which you
and the colonel love ; and I want to shoot nothing alive,
not a turkey, nor a titmouse, nor an ox, nor an ass, nor
anything that has ears. Those curls of Mr. Washington’s
are prettily powdered.’
The militia colonel, who had been offended by the first
part of the talk, and very much puzzled by the last, had
taken a modest draught from the great china bowl of apple
toddy which stood to welcome the guests in this as in
all Virginia houses, and was further cooling himself by pacing
the balcony in a very stately manner.
Again almost reconciled with the elder, the appeased
A CO^tDION DISEASE
81
mother stood giving a hand to each of her sons. George
put his disengaged hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘ I say one
thing, George,’ says he, with a flushing face.
‘ Say twenty things, Don Enrico,’ cries the other.
^ If you are' not fond of sporting and that, and don’t
care for killing game and hunting, being cleverer than me,
why shouldst thou not stop at home and be quiet, and
let me go out with Colonel George and Mr. Braddock —
that’s wh^atlsay,’ says Harry, delivering himself of his speech.
The widow looked eagerly from the dark-haired to the
fair-haired boy. She faiew not from which she would
like to part.
‘ One of our family must go because honneur oblige,
and my name being number one, number one must go
first,’ says George.
‘ Told you so,’ said poor Harry.
‘ One must stay, or who is to look after mother at home ?
We cannot afford to be both scalped by Indians or fricasseed
by French.’
* Fricasseed by French,’ cries Harry, ‘ the best troops
of the world ! Englishmen ! I should like to see them
fricasseed by the French ! What a mortal, thrashing you
will give them I ’ and the brave lad sighed to think he should
not be present at the battue.
George sat down to the harpsichord and played and
sang, ‘Malbrook s’en va t^en guerre Mironton mironton
mirontaine,’ at the sound of which music the gentleman
from the balcony entered. ‘ I am playing “ God save the
King ”, colonel, in compliment to the new expedition.’
‘ I never know whether thou art laughing or in earnest,’
said the simple gentleman, ‘but surely methmks that is
not the air.’
George performed ever so many trills and quavers upon
his harpsichord, and their guest watched him, wondering,
perhaps, that a gentleman of George’s condition could
set himself to such an effeminate business. Then the
colonel took out his watch, saying that his excellency’s
coach would be here almost immediately, and asking leave
to retire to his apartment and put himself in a flt condition
to appear before her ladyship’s company.
‘ Colonel Washington knows the way to his room pretty
well I ’ said George, from the haipsichord, looking over
his shoulder, but never offering to stir,
82
THE VIRGINIANS
* Let me show the colonel to his chamber,’ cried the widow,
in great wrath, and sailed out of the apartment, followed
by the enraged and bewildered colonel, as George continued
crashing among the keys. *Her high-spirited guest felt
himself insulted, he could hardly say how : he was out-
raged, and he could not speak ; he was almost stifling
with anger.
Harry Warrington remarked their friend’s condition.
‘Eor Heaven’s sake, George, what does this aU mean?’
he asked his brother. ‘ Why shouldn’t he kiss her hand ? ’
(George had just before fetched out his brother from their
library, to watch this harmless salute.) ‘ I teD. you it is
nothing but common kindness.’
‘ Nothing but common kindness ! ’ shrieked out George.
‘ Look at that, Hal ! Is that common kindness ? ’ and
he showed his junior the unlucky paper over which he
had been brooding for some time. It was but a fragment,
though the meaning was indeed clear without the pre-
ceding text.
The paper commenced : . is older than myself, hut 7,
again, am older than my years ; and you hrmo, dmr hrother,
Imue ever been considered a sober ^person. All children are
better for a father^ s superiTiiendence, and her two, I trust,
will find in me a tender friend and guardian,^
^ Friend and guardian ! Curse him 1 ’ shrieked out
George, clenching his fists — ^and his brother read on :
‘ . The flattering offer which General Braddock hath
made me, will, of course, oblige me to postpone this matter
until after the campaign. When we have given the French
a sufficient drubbing, I shall return to repose under my own
vine and fig-treeJ
‘ He means Castlewood. These are his vines,’ George
cries again, shaking his fist at the creepers sunning them-
selves on the wall.
‘ . Under my own vine and fig-tree ; where I hope soon
to present my dear brother to his new sister-in-law. She has
a pretty Scripture name, which is .. . ’ — and here the docu-
ment ended.
‘ Which is Rachel,’ George went on bitterly. ‘ Rachel is
by no means weeping for her children, and has every
desire to be comforted. Now, Harry ! Let us upstairs
at once, kneel down as becomes us, and say, “ Dear papa,
welcome to your house of Castlewood.” ’
83
CHAPTER IX
HOSPITATITIES
IS excellency the commander-
in-chief set forth to pay his
visit to Madam Esmond in such
a state and splendour as be-
came the first personage in all
his Majesty’s colonies, planta-
tions, and possessions of North
America, His guard of dra-
goons preceded him out of
Williamsburg in the midst of
an immense shouting and yell-
ing of a loyal, and princi-
pally negro, population. The
general rode in his own coach.
Captain Talmadge, his excel-
lency’s master of the horse,
attended him at the door
of the ponderous emblazoned
vehicle, riding by the side of
journey from Williamsburg to
Madam Esmond’s house. Major Danvers, aide de camp,
sat in the front of the carriage with the little post-
master from Philadelphia, Mr. Eranklin, who, printer’s
boy as he had been, was a wonderful shrewd person,
as his excellency and the gentlemen of his family were
fain to acknowledge, having a quantity of the most
curious information respecting the colony, and regarding
England too, where Mr. Franklin had been more than once.
‘ ’Twas extraordinary how a person of such humble origin
should have acquired such a variety of learning, and such
a politeness of breeding, too, Mr. Franklin 1 ’ his excellency
was pleased to observe, touching his hat graciously to the
postmaster.
The postmaster bowed, said it had been his occasional
good fortune to fall into the company of gentlemen like
his excellency, and that he had taken advantage of his
opportunity to study their honours’ manners, and adapt
84
THE VIRGINIANS
himself to them as far as he might. As for education,
he could not boast much of that — ^his father being but in
straitened circumstances, and the advantages small in
his native country of New England : but he had done to
the utmost of his power, and gathered what he could — ^he
knew nothing like what they had in England.
Mr. Braddock burst out laughing, and said, ‘As for
education, there were gentlemen of the army, by George,
who didn’t know whether they should speU bull with two
b’s or one. He had heard the Duke of Marlborough
was no special good penman. He had not the honour of.
serving under that noble commander — ^his grace was before
his time — ^but he thrashed the French soundly, although
he was no scholar.’
Mr. Franklin said he was aware of both those facts.
‘ Nor is my duke a scholar,’ went on Mr. Braddock —
‘aha, Mr. Postmaster, you have heard that, too — I see
by the wink in your eye.’
Mr. Franklin instantly withdrew the obnoxious or
satirical wink in his eye, and looked in the general’s jolly
round face with a pair of orbs as innocent as a baby’s.
‘ He’s no scholar, but he is a match for any French general
that ever swallowed the English for fricassee de cra^aud.
He saved the crown for the best of kings, his royal father,
his Most Gracious Majesty King George.’
Off went Mr, Franklin’s hat, and from his large buckled
wig escaped a great halo of powder.
‘ He is the soldier’s best friend, and has been the un-
compromising enemy of all beggarly red-shanked Scotch
rebels and intriguing Romish Jesuits who would take
our liberty from us, and our religion, by George. His
royal highness, my gracious master, is not a scholar neither,
but he is one of the finest gentlemen in the world.’
‘ I have seen his royal highness on horseback, at a review
of the Guards, in Hyde Park,’ says Mr. Franklin. ‘ The
duke is indeed a very fine gentleman on horseback.’
‘You shall drink his health to-day, postmaster. He is
the best of masters, the best of friends, the best of sons
to his royal old father ; the best of gentlemen that ever
wore an epaulet.’
‘ E^ulets are quite out of my way, sir,’ says Mr. Franklin,
laughing. ‘ You know I live in a Quaker city.’
‘ Of course they are out of your way, my good friend.
HOSPITALITIES
85
Every man to his business. You, and gentlemen of your
class, to your books, and welcome. We don’t forbid you ;
we encourage you. We, to fight the enemy and govern
the country. Hey, gentlemen ? Lord 1 what roads you
have in this colony, and how this confounded coach plunges !
Who have we here, with the two negro boys in livery 2
He rides a good gelding.’
‘ It is Mr. Washington,’ says the aide de camp.
‘ I would like him for a corporal of the Horse Grenadiers,’
said the general. ‘ He has a good figure on a horse. He
knows the country too, Mr. Eranklin.’
‘ Yes, indeed.’
‘And is a monstrous genteel young man, considering
the opportunities he has had. I should have thought
he had the polish of Europe, by George, I should.’
‘ He does his best,’ says Mr. Franklin, looking innocently
at the stout chief, the exemplar of Enghsh elegance, who
sat swagging from one side to the other of the carriage,
his face as scarlet as his coat — ^swearing at every other
word ; ignorant on every point off parade, except the
merits of a bottle and the looks of a woman ; not of high
birth, yet absurdly proud of his no-ancestry; brave as
a bulldog ; savage, lustful, prodigal, generous ; gentle
in soft moods ; easy of love and laughter ; dull of wit ;
utterly unread ; believing his country the first in the world,
and he as good a gentleman as any in it. ‘ Yes, he is
mighty weS for a provincial, upon my word. He was
beat at Fort What-d’ye-call-um last year, down by the
Thingamy river. What’s the name on’t, Talmadge ? ’
‘ The Lord knows, sir,’ said Talmadge ; ‘ and I dare say
the postmaster, too, who is laughing at us both.’
‘ Oh, captain ! ’
‘ Was caught in a regular trap. He had only militia
and Indians with him. Good day, Mr. Washington.
A pretty nag, sir. That was your first affair last year 2 ’
‘ That at Fort Necessity ? Yes, sir,’ said the gentleman,
gravely saluting, as he rode up, follow'^ed by a couple of
natty negro grooms, in smart Uvery coats and velvet
hunting caps. ‘ I began ill, sir, never having been in action
until that unlucky day.’
‘ You were all raw levies, my good fellow. You should
have seen our militia run from the Scotch, and be cursed
to them. You should have had some troops with you.’
86
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Your excellency knows ’tis my passionate desire to
see and serve with them,’ said Mr. Washington.
‘ By George we shall try and gratify you, sir,’ said the
general, with one of his usual huge oaths ; and on the
heavy carriage rolled towards Castlewood ; Mr. Washington
asking leave to gallop on ahead, in order to announce his
excellency’s speedy arrival to the lady there.
The progress of the commander-in-chief w^as so slow,
that several humbler persons who were invited to meet
his excellency came up with his carriage, and, not liking
to pass the great man on the road, formed quite a procession
in the dusty wake of his chariot-wheels. First came
Mr. Dinwiddle, the lieutenant-governor of his Majesty’s
province, attended by his negro servants, and in company
of Parson Broadbent, the jolly Williamsburg chaplain.
These were presently joined by little Mr. Dempster, the
young gentlemen’s schoolmaster, in his great Ramillies
wig, which he kept for occasions of state. Anon appeared
Mr. Laws, the judge of the court, with Madam Laws on
a pillion behind him, and their negro man carrying a box
containing her ladyship’s cap, and bestriding a mule.
The procession looked so ludicrous, that Major Danvers
and Mr. Franklin espying it, laughed outright, though
not so loud sbs to disturb his excellency, who was asleep
by this time, bade the whole of this queer rearguard move
on, and leave the commander-in-chief and his escort of
dragoons to follow at their leisure. There was room for
all at Castlewood when they came. There was meat,
drink, and the best tobacco for his Majesty’s soldiers,
and laughing and jollity for the negroes, and a plenteouo
welcome for their masters.
The honest general required to be helped to most dishes
at the table, and more than once, and was for ever holding
out his glass for drink ; Nathan’s sangaree he pronounced
to be excellent, and had drunk largely of it on arriving
before dinner. There was cider, ale, brandy, and plenty
of good Bordeaux wine, some which Colonel Esmond Mmself
had brought home with him to the colony, and which
was fit for ponteeflcis coenis, said little Mr. Dempster, with
a wink to Mr. Broadbent, the clergyman of the adjoining
parish. Mr. Broadbent returned the wink and nod, and
drank the wine without caring about the Latin, as why
should he, never having hitherto troubled himself about
HOSPITALITIES
87
the language ? IVIr. Broadbent was a gambling, guzzling,
cock-fighting divine, who had passed much time in the
Fleet prison, at Newmarket, at Hockley in the Hole ; and
having gone of all sorts of errands for his friend Lord
Cinqbars, Lord Ringwood’s son (my Lady Cinqbars’s
waiting-woman being Mr. B.’s mother — I dare say the
modern reader had best not to be too particular regarding
Mr. Broadbent’s father’s pedigree), had been of late sent
out to a church-living in Virginia. He and young Harry
had fought many a match of cocks together, taken many
a roe in company, hauled in countless quantities of shad
and salmon, slain wild geese and wild swans, pigeons and
plovers, and destroyed myriads of canvas-backed ducks.
It was said by the envious that Broadbent was the mid-
night poacher, on whom Mr. Washington set his dogs,
and whom he caned by the riverside at Mount Vernon.
The feUow got away from his captor’s grip, and scrambled
to his boat in the dark ; but Broadbent was laid up for
two Sundays afterwards, and when he came abroad again,
had the evident remains of a black eye, and a new collar to
his coat. All the games at the cards had Harry Esmond
and Parson Broadbent played together, besides hunting all
the birds in the air, the beasts in the forest, and the fish
of the sea. Indeed, when the boys rode together to get
their reading with 'Mr. Dempster, I suspect that Harry
stayed behind and took lessons from the other professor
of European learning and accomphshments, — George going
his own way, reading his own books, and, of course, telling
no tales of his younger brother.
All the birds of the Virginia air, and all the fish of the
sea in season were here laid on Madam Esmond’s board
to feed his excellency and the rest of the English and
American gentlemen. The gumbo was declared to be
perfection (young Mr. George’s black servant was named
after this dish, being discovered behind the door with
his head in a bpwl of this delicious hotch-potch by the
late colonel, and grimly christened on the spot), the shad
were rich and fresh, the stewed terrapins were worthy
of London aldermen, — before George, he would like the
duke himself to taste them, his excellency deigned to
say, and indeed, stewed terrapins are worthy of any duke
or even emperor. The negro women have a genius for
cookery, and in Castlewood kitchens there were adepts
88
THE VIRGINIANS
in the art brought up under the keen eye of the late and
the present Madam Esmond. Certain of the dishes,
especially the sweets and flarbs. Madam Esmond prepared
herself \^ith great neatness and dexterity ; carving several
of the principal pieces, as the kindly cumbrous fashion
of the day was, putting up the laced lappets of her sleeves,
and showing the prettiest round arms and small hands
and wrists as she performed this ancient rite of ahospitaHty
not so languid as ours. The old law of the table was that
the mistress was to press her guests with a decent eagerness,
to W'atch and see whom she could encourage to further
enjoyment, to know culinary anatomic secrets, and execute
carving operations upon fowls, fish, game, joints of meat,
and so forth ; to cheer her guests to fresh efforts, to whisper
her neighbour, Mr. Braddock : ‘ I have kept for your
excellency the jowl of this salmon. — ^I wiU take no denial !
Mr. Franklin, you drink only water, sir, though our cellar
has wholesome wine which gives no headaches — ^Mr.
Justice, you love woodcock pie ? ’
^ Because I know who makes the pastry,’ says Mr. Law'^s,
the judge, with a profound bow’. ‘ I wish, madam, we
had such a happy knack of pastry at home as you have
at Castlewood. I often say to my wife, “ My dear, I wish
you had Madam Esmond’s hand.” ’
‘ It is a very pretty hand ; I am sure others w’ould like
it too,’ says Mr. Postmaster of Boston, at which remark
Mr. Esmond looks but half -pleased at the little gentleman.
‘ Such a hand for a light pie-crust,’ continues the judge,
‘ and my service to you, madam.’ And he thinks the widow^
cannot but be propitiated by this compliment. She says
simply that she had lessons when she w^as at home in
England for her education, and that there were certain
dishes which her mother taught her to make, and which
her father and sons both liked. She was very glad if
they pleased her company. More such remarks foUow i
more dishes ; ten times as much meat as is needful for the
company. Mr. Washington does not embark in the general
conversation much, but he and Mr. Talmadge, and Major
Danvers, and the postmaster, are deep in talk about roads,
rivers, conveyances, sumpter-horses and artillery train,,
and the provincial militia colonel has bits of bread laid
at intervals on the table before him, and stations marked
out, on which he has liis finger, and rega^rding which he
HOSPITALITIES
89
is talking to his brother aides de camp, till a negro servant,
changing the courses, brushes off the Potomac with a nap-
kin, and sweeps up the Ohio in a spoon.
At the end of dinner, Mr. Broadbent leaves his place
and walks up behind the lieutenant-governor’s chair, where
he says grace, returning to his seat and resuming his knife
and fork when this work of devotion is over. And now
the sweets and puddings are come, of which I can give
you a list, if you like : but 'what young lady cares for
the puddings of to-day, much more for those which were
eaten a hundred years ago, and which Madam Esmond
had prepared for her guests with so much neatness and
skill ? Then, the table being cleared, Nathan, her chief
manager, lays a glass to every person, and fills his mistress’s.
Bowing to the company, she says she drinks but one toast,
but knoy^s how heartily all the gentlemen present will join
her. Then she calls, ‘ His Majesty,’ bowing to Mr. Brad-
dock, who with his aides de camp and the colonial gentle-
men all loyally repeat the name of their beloved and gracious
sovereign. And hereupon, having drunk her glass of
wine and saluted all the company, the widow retires between
a row of negro servants, performing one of her very
handsomest curtsies at the door.
The kind mistress of Castlewood bore her part in the
entertainment with admirable spirit, and looked so gay
and handsome, and spoke with such cheerfulness and
courage to all her company, that the few ladies who were
present at the dinner could not but congratulate Madam
Esmond upon the elegance of the feast, and especially
upon her manner of presiding at it. But they were
scarcely got to her drawing-room, when her artificial
courage failed her, and she burst into tears on the sofa
by Mrs. Laws’s side, just in the midst of a compliment
from that lady. ‘ Ah, madam ! ’ she said. ‘ It may be
an honour, as you say, to have the king’s representative
in my house, and our family has received greater per-
sonages than Mr. Braddock. But he comes to take one
of my sons away from me. Who knows whether my boy
will return, or how ? I dreamed of him last night as
wounded, and quite white, with blood streaming from
his side. I would not be so ill-maimered as to let my
grief be visible before the gentlemen ; but, my good
Mrs. Justice, who has parted with children, and who has
90
THE VIRGINIANS
a mother’s heart of her own, would like me ‘none the better,
if mine w’ere very easy this evening.’
The ladies administered such consolations as seemed
proper or palatable to their hostess, who tried not to give
way further to her melancholy, and remembered that she
had other duties to perform, before yielding to her own sad
mood. ‘ It will be time enough, madam, to be sorry when
they are gone,’ she said to the justice’s wife, her good
neighbour. ‘ My boy must not see me following him
with a wistful face, and have our parting made more
dismal by my w’eakness. It is good that gentlemen of
his rank and station should show themselves where
their country calls them. That has always been the w^ay
of the Esmonds, and the same Power which graciously
preserved my dear father, through twenty great battles
in the queen’s time, I trust and pray, will watch over my
son now his turn is come to do his duty.’ And, now, instead
of lamenting her fate, or further alluding to it, I dare
say the resolute lady sat down with her female friends
to a pool of cards and a dish of coffee, whilst the gentle-
men remained in the neighbouring parlour, still calling
their toasts and drinking their wine. When one lady
objected that these latter were sitting rather long, Madam
Esmond said : ^ It would improve and amuse the boys
to be with the English gentlemen. Such society w’as very
rarely to be had in their distant province, and though
their conversation sometimes was free, she was sure that
gentlemen and men of fashion would have regard to the
youth of her sons, and say nothing before them which
young people should not hear.’
It was evident that the English gentlemen relished the
good cheer provided for them. Whilst the ladies were yet
at their cards, Nathan came in and whispered Mrs. Moun-
tain, who at first cried out — ‘ No ! she would give no
more — ^the common bordeaux they might have, and
welcome, if they still wanted more — ^but she would not
give any more of the colonel’s,’ It appeared that the
dozen bottles of particular claret had been already drunk
up by the gentlemen, ‘ besides ale, cider, burgundy,
lisbon, and madeira,’ says Mrs. Mountain, enumerating
the supplies.
But Madam Esmond was for having no stint in the
hospitality of the night. Mrs. Mountain was fain to
HOSPITALITIES
91
bustle away with her keys to the sacred vault where the
coloneFs particular bordeaux lay, surviving its master,
who too had long passed underground. As they went
on their journey, Mrs. Mountain asked whether any of the
gentlemen had had too much ? Nathan thought Mister
Broadbent was tipsy — ^he always tipsy ; he then thought
the general gentleman was tipsy ; and he thought Master
George was a lilly dnmk.
‘ Master George ! ’ cries Mrs. Mountain ; ‘ why, he will
sit for days without touching a drop.’
Nevertheless, Nathan persisted in his notion that Master
George was a lilly drunk. He was always filling his glass,
he had talked, he had sung, he had cut jokes, especially
against Mr. Washington, which made Mr. Washington
quite red and angry, Nathan said. ‘ Well, well ! ’ Mrs.
Mountain cried eagerly ; ‘ it was right a gentleman should
make himself merry in good company, and pass the bottle
along with his friends.’ And she trotted to the particular
bordeaux cellar with only the more alacrity.
The tone of freedom and almost impertinence wdiich
young George Esmond had adopted of late days towards
Mr. Washington had very deeply vexed and annoyed that
gentleman. There was scarce half a dozen years* differ-
ence of age between him and the Castlewood twins ; but
Mr. Washington had always been remarked for a discretion
and sobriety much beyond his time of hfe, whilst the
boys of Castlewood seemed younger than theirs. They
had always been till now under their mother’s anxious
tutelage, and had looked up to their neighbour of Momt
Vernon as their guide, director, friend — as, indeed, almost
everybody seemed to do who came in contact with the sim-
ple and upright young man. Himself of the most scrupu-
lous gravity and good breeding, in his communication with
other folks he appeared to exact, or, at any rate, to occa-
sion, the same behavioixr. His nature was above levity and
j okes : they seemed out of place when addressed to him. He
was slow of comprehending them : and they slunk as it
were abashed out of his society. ‘ He always seemed great
to me,’ says Harry Warrington, in one of his letters many
years after the date of which we are WTiting : ‘ and I never
thought of him otherwise than as a hero. When he came
over to Castlewood and taught us boys surveying, to see him
riding to hounds was as if he was charging an army. If
92
THE VTOGIOTAI^S
lie fired a shot, I thought the bird must come down, and if
he flung a net, the largest fish in the river were sure to be in
it. His words were always few, but they were always wise ;
they were not idle, as our words are, they were grave, sober,
and strong, and ready on occasion to do their duty. In
spite of his antipathy to him, my brother respected and
admired the general as much as I did — ^that is to say, more
than any mortal man.’
Mr. Washington was the fibrst to leave the jovial party
which were doing so much honour to Madam Esmond’s
hospitality. Young George Esmond, who had taken
his mother’s place when she left it, had been free with the
glass and with the tongue. He had said a score of things
to his guest which wounded and chafed the latter, and to
which Mr. Washington could give no reply. Angry beyond
all endurance, he left the table at length, and walked away
through the open windows into the broad veranda or porch
which belong^ to Cfeistlewood as to all Virginian houses.
Here Madam Esmond caught sight of her friend’s tall
frame as it strode up and down before the windows :
and, the evening being warm, or her game over, she gave
up her cards to one of the other la^es, and joined her
good neighbour out of doors. He tried to compose his
countenance as well as he could : it was impossible that
he should explain to his hostess why and with whom he
was angry.
‘ The gentlemen are long over their wine,’ she said ;
‘ gentlemen of the army are always fond of it.’
‘ If drinking makes good soldiers, some yonder are
distinguishing themselves greatly, madam,’ said Mr. Wash-
ington.
‘ And I dare say the general is at the head of his troops ? ’
‘ No doubt, no doubt,’ answered the colonel, who always
received this lady’s remarks, playful or serious, with a pecu-
liar softness and kindness. ‘ But the general is the general,
and it is not for me to make remark on his excellency’s
doings at table or elsewhere. I think very likely that
mihtary gentlemen bom and bred at home are different from
us of the colonies. We have such a hot sun, that we
need not wine to fire our blood as they do. And drinking
toasts seems a point of honour with them. Talmadge
hiccupped to me — ^I should say, whispered to me — ^just
now, that an officer could no more refuse a toast than
HOSPITALITIES
93
a challenge, and he said that it was after the greatest
difficulty and dishke at first that he learned to drink.
He has certainly overcome his difficulty with uncommon
resolution.’
‘ What, I wonder, can you talk of for so many hours ? ’
asked the lady.
‘ I don’t think I can tell you all we talk of, madam, and
I must not tell tales out of school. We talked about the
war, and of the force Mr. Contreoceur has, and how we
are to get at him. The general is for making the campaign
in his coach, and makes light of it and the enemy. That
we shall beat them, if we meet them, I trust there is no
doubt.’
‘ How can there be ? ’ says the lady, whose father had
served under Marlborough.
‘ Mr. Franklin, though he is only from New England,’
continued the gentleman, ‘spoke great good sense, and
would have spoken more if the Enghsh gentlemen would
let him ; but they reply invariably that we are only raw
provincials, and don’t know what disciplined British troops
can do. Had they not best hasten forwards and make
turnpike-roads and have comfortable inns ready for his
excellency at the end of the day’s march ? — “ There’s
some sort of inns, I suppose,” says Mr. Danvers, “ not so
comfortable as we have in England, we can’t expect that.” —
“ No, you can’t expect that,” says Mr. FrankHn, who seems
a very shrewd and facetious person. He drinks his water,
and seems to laugh at the Englishmen, though I doubt
whether it is fair for a water-drinker to sit by and spy out
the weaknesses of gentlemen over their wine.’
‘ And my boys ? I hope they are prudent ? ’ said the
widow, laying her hand on her guest’s arm. ‘ Harry
promised me, and when he gives his word, I can trust him
for anything. George is always moderate. Why do you
look so grave ? ’
‘ Indeed, to be frank with you, I do not know what has
come over George in these last days,’ says Mr. Washington.
‘ He has some grievance against me which I do not under-
stand, and of which I don’t care to ask the reason. He
spoke to me before the gentlemen in a way wliich scarcely
became him. We are going the campaign together, and
’tis a pity we begin such ill friends.’
‘ He has been ill. He is always wild and wayward, and
94
THE VIRGINIANS
hard to understand. But he has the most affectionate
heart in the world. You will bear with him, you will
protect him — ^promise me you will.’
‘ Dear lady, I will do so with my life,’ Mr. Washington
said with great fervour. ^ You know I would lay it dowm
cheerfully for you or any you love.’
‘ And my father’s blessing and mine go with you, dear
friend ! ’ cried the widow', full of thanks and affection.
As they pursued their conversation, they had quitted
the porch under which they had first begun to talk, and
where they could hear the laughter and toasts of the
gentlemen over their wine, and were pacing a walk on the
rough lawn before the house. Young George Warrington,
from his place at the head of the table in the dining-room,
could see the pair as they passed to and fro, and had listened
for some time past, and replied in a very distracted manner
to the remarks of the gentlemen round about him, who were
too much engaged with their own talk, and jokes, and
drinking, to pay much attention to their young host’s
behaviour. Mr. Braddock loved a song after dinner, and
Mr. Danvers, his aide de camp, who had a fine tenor voice,
wras delighting his general with the latest ditty from Mary-
bone Gardens, when George Warrington, jumping up,
ran towards the window, and then returned and pulled
his brother Harry by the sleeve, w'ho sat wdth his back
towards the window.
‘ What is it ? ’ says Harry, who, for his part, was charmed,
too, with the song and chorus.
‘ Come,’ cried George, with a stamp of his foot, and the
younger followed obediently.
‘ What is it ? ’ continued George, with a bitter oath.
‘ Don’t you see what it is ? They were billing and cooing
this morning; they are billing and cooing now before
going to roost. Had we not better both go into the garden,
and pay our duty to our mamma and papa ? ’ and he
pointed to Mr. Washin^on, who w^as taking the widow’s
hand very tenderly in his.
97
CHAPTER X
A HOT APTEBNOON
ENBRAL Bbabdock and the
other guests of Castle-
wood being duly con-
signed to their respective
quarters, the boys re-
tired to their own room,
and there poured out
to one another their
opinions respecting the
great event of the day.
They would not bear
such a marriage — ^no.
Was* the representative
of the Marquises of Es-
mond to marry the
younger son of a colonial
family, who had been
bred up as a land-
surveyor ? Castlewood,
and the boys at nineteen years of age, handed over
to the tender mercies of a^ stepfather of ihreerand-
twenty ! Oh, it was monstrous ! Harry was for going
straightway to his mother in her bedroom — ^where her
black maidens were divesting her ladyship of the simple
jewels and fineries which she had assumed in compliment
to the feast — ^protesting against the odious match, and
announcing that they would go home, live upon their little
property there, and leave her for ever, if the unnatural
union took place.
George advocated another way of stopping it, and
explained his plan to his admiring brother. ‘ Our mother,’
he said, ‘ can’t marry a man with whom one or both of us
has been out on the field, and who has wounded us or
killed us, or whom we have wounded or killed. We must
have him out, Harry.’
Harry saw the profound truth conveyed in George’s
statement, and admired his brother’s immense sagacity.
TIRGINIAirs E
THE VIRGINIANS
* No, George,’ says he, ‘ you are right. Mother can’t marry
our murderer ; she won’t be as bad as that. And if we
pink him, he is done for. “ Cadit quaestio,^^ as Mr. Dempster
used to say. Shall I send my boy with a challenge to
Colonel George now ? ’
‘ My dear Harry,’ the elder replied, thinking with some
complacency of his affair of honour at Quebec, ‘ you are
not accustomed to affairs of this sort.’
‘ No,’ owned Harry, with a sigh, looking with envy and
admiration on his senior.
‘ We can’t insult a gentleman in our own house,’ con-
tinued George, with great majesty, ‘ the laws of honour
forbid such inhospitable treatment. But, sir, we can ride
out with him, and, as soon as the park gates are closed,
we can tell him our mind.’
‘ That we can, by Greorge ! ’ cries Harry, grasping his
brother’s hand, ‘ and that we will, too. I say, Georgy . . .’
Here the lad’s face became very red, and his brother asked
him what he would say ?
* This is my turn, brother,’ Harry pleaded. * If you go
the campaign, I ought to have the other affair^ Lideed,
indeed, I ought ; ’ and he prayed for this bit of promotion.
‘ Again the head of the house must take the lead, my
dear,’ (Jeorge said with a superb air. ‘ If I fall, my Harry
will avenge me. But I must fight George Washington,
Hal ; and ’tis best I should ; for, indeed, I hate him the
worst. Was it not he who counselled my mother to order
that wretch, Ward, to lay hands on me ? ’
‘Ah, George,’ interposed the more pacable younger
brother, ‘ you ought to forget and forgive ! ’
‘ Forgive ? Never, sir, as long as I remember. You
can’t order remembrance out of a man’s mind ; and a
wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-
morrow. I never, of my knowledge, did one to any man,
and I never will suffer one if I can help it. I think very
iU of Mr. Ward, but I don’t think so badly of him as to
suppose he will ever forgive thee that blow with the ruler.
Colonel Washington is our enemy, mine especially. He
has advised one wrong against me, and he meditates a
greater. I tell you, brother, we must punish him.’
The grandsire’s old bordeaux had set George’s ordinarily
pale countenance into a flame. Harry, his brother’s fondest
worshipper, could not but admire George’s haughty bearing
A HOT AFTERNOON
99
and rapid declamation, and prepared himself, with his
usual docility, to follow his chief. So the boys went to
their beds, the elder conveying special injunctions to his
junior to be civil to all the guests so long as they remained
under the maternal roof on the morrow.
Good manners, and a repugnance to telling tales out ^f
school, forbid us from saying which of Madam Esmond’s
guests was the first to fall under the weight of her hos-
pitality. The respectable descendants of Messrs. Talmadge
and Danvers, aides de camp to his excellency, might not
care to hear how their ancestors were intoxicated a hundred
years ago ; and yet the gentlemen themselves took no
shame in the fact, and there is little doubt they or their
comrades were tipsy twice or thrice in the week. Let us
fancy them reeling to bed, supported by sympathizing
negroes ; and their vinous general, too stout a toper to
have surrendered himself to a half-dozen bottles of bor-
deaux, conducted to his chamber by the young gentlemen
of the house, and speedily sleeping the sleep which friendly
Bacchus gives. The good lady of Castlewood saw the
100
THE VIRGINIANS
condition of her guests without the least surprise or horror ;
and was up early in the morning, providing cooling drinks
for their hot palates, which the servants carried to their
respective chambers. At breakfast, one of the English
officers rallied Mr. Franklin, who took no wine at all, and
therefore refused the morning cool draught of toddy, by
showing how the Philadelphia gentleman lost two pleasures,
the drink and the toddy. The young fellow said the disease
was pleasant and the remedy de&ious, and laughingly
proposed to continue repeating them both. The general’s
new American aide de camp. Colonel Washington, was
quite sober and serene. The British officers vowed they
must take him in hand and teach him what the ways of
the British army were ; but the Virginian gentleman
gravely said he did not care to learn that part of the
English military education.
The widow, occupied as she had been with the cares of
a great dinner, followed by a great breakfast on the morning
ensuing, had scarce leisure to remark the behaviour of her
sons very closely, but at least saw that George was scrupu-
lously polite to her favourite. Colonel Washington, as to
all the other guests of the house.
Before Mr. Braddock took his leave, he had a private
audience of Madam Esmond, in which his excellency
formally offered to take her son into his family ; and
when the arrangem^ts for George’s departure were settled
between his mother and future chief. Madam Esmond,
though she might feel them, did not show any squeamish
terrors about the dangers of the bottle, which she saw
were amongst the severest and most certain which her son
would have to face. She knew her boy must take his
part in the world, and encounter his portion of evil and
good. ‘ Mr. Braddock is a perfect fine gentleman in the
morning,’ she said stoutly to her aide de camp, Mrs. Moun-
tain ; ‘ and though my papa did not drink, ’tis certain
that many of the best company in England do.’ The jolly
general good-naturedly shook hands with George, who pre-
sented himself to his excellency after the maternal interview
was over, and bade George welcome, and to be in attendance
at Frederick three days hence ; shortly after which time
the expedition would set forth.
And now the great coach was again called into requisi-
tion, the general’s escort pranced round it, the other guests
A HOT AFTERNOON
101
and their servants went to horse. The lady of Castlewood
attended his excellency to the steps of the veranda in
front of her house, the young gentlemen followed, and
stood on each side of his coach-door. The guard trumpeter
blew a shrill blast, the negroes shouted ‘ Huzzay,’ and ‘ God
sabe de King,’ as Mr. Braddock most graciously took leave
of his hospitable entertainers, and rolled away on his road
to head quarters.
As the boys went up the steps, there was the colonel
once more taking leave of their mother. No doubt she
had been once more recommending George to his name-
sake’s care ; for Colonel Washington said : ‘ With my life.
You may depend on me,’ as the lads returned to their
mother, and the few guests still remaining in the porch.
The colonel was booted and ready to depart. ‘ Farewell,
my dear Harry,’ he said. ‘ With you, George, ’tis no adieu.
We shall meet in three days at the camp.’
Both the young men were going to danger, perhaps to
death. Colonel Washington was taking leave of her, and
she was to see him no more before the campaign. No
wonder the widow was very much moved.
George Warrington watched his mother’s emotion, and
interpreted it with a pang of malignant scorn. ‘ Stay yet
a moment, and console our mamma,’ he said with a steady
countenance, ‘ only the time to get ourselves booted, and
my brother and I will ride with you a little way, George.’
George Warrington had already ordered his horses. The
three young men were speedily under way, their negro
grooms behind them, and Mrs. Mountain, who knew she
had made mischief between them and trembled for the
result, felt a vast relief that Mr, Washington was gone
without a quarrel with the brothers, without, at any rate,
an open declaration of love to their mother.
No man could be more courteous in demeanour than
George Warrington to his neighbour and namesake, the
colonel. The latter was pleased and surprised at his young
friend’s altered behaviour. The community of danger, the
necessity of future fellowship, the softening influence of the
long friendship which bound him to the Esmond family,
the tender adieux which had just passed between him and
the mistress of Castlewood, inclined the colonel to forget the
unpleasantness of the past days, and made him more
than usually friendly with liis young companion. George
102
THE VIRGINIANS
was quite gay and easy : it was Harry who was melan-
choly now : he rode silently and wistfully by his brother,
keeping away from Colonel Washington, to whose side he
used always to press eagerly before. If the honest colonel
remarked his young friend’s conduct, no doubt he attributed
it to Harry’s known affection for his brother, and his
natural anxiety to be with George now the day of their
parting was so near.
They talked further about the war, and the probable
end of the campaign : none of the three doubted its suc-
cessful termination. Two thousand veteran British troops
with their commander must get the better of any force
the French could bring against them, if only they moved
in decent time. The ardent young Virginian soldier had
an immense respect for the experienced valour and tactics
of the regular troops. King George II had no more loyal
subject than Mr. Braddock’s new aide de camp.
So the party rode amicably together, until they reached
a certain rude log-house, called Benson’s, of which the
proprietor, according to the custom of the day and country,
did not disdain to accept money from his guests in return
for hospitalities provided. There was a recruiting station
here, and some oflGicers and men of Halkett’s regiment
assembled, and here Colonel Washington supposed that his
young friends would take leave of him.
Whilst their horses were baited, they entered the public
room, and found a rough meal prepared for such as were
disposed to partake. George Warrington entered the place
with a particularly gay and lively air, whereas poor Harry’s
face was quite white and woebegone.
‘ One would think, Squire Harry, ’twas you who was
going to leave home and fight the French and Indians,
and not Mr. George,’ says Benson.
‘ I may be alarmed about danger to my brother,’ said
Harry, ‘ though I might bear my own share pretty well.
’Tis not my fault that I stay at home.’
‘ No, indeed, brother,’ cries George.
^ Harry Warrington’s courage does not need any proof ! ’
cries Mr. Washington,
‘ You do the family honour by speaking so well of us,
colonel,’ says Mr. George, with a low bow. ‘ I dare say
we can hold our own, if need be.’
Whilst his friend was vaunting his courage, Harry looked,
A HOT AFTERNOON
103
to say the truth, by no means courageous. As his eyes
met his brother’s he read in George’s look an announce-
ment which alarmed the fond faithful lad. ‘ You are not
going to do it now ? ’ he whispered his brother.
‘ Yes, now,’ says Mr. George, very steadily.
‘ For God’s sake let me have the turn. You are going
on the campaign, you ought not to have everything — and
there may be an explanation, George. We may be all
wrong.’
‘ Psha, how can we ? It must be done now — don’t be
alarmed. No names shall be mentioned — shall easily
find a subject.’
A couple of Halkett’s officers, whom our young gentle-
men knew, were sitting under the porch, with the Vir-
ginian toddy-bowl before them.
‘ What are you conspiring, gentlemen ? ’ cried one of
them. ‘ Is it a drink ? ’
By the tone of their voices and their flushed cheeks, it
was clear the gentlemen had already been engaged in
drinking that morning.
‘ The very thing, sir,’ George said gaily. ‘ Fresh glasses,
Mr. Benson ! What, no glasses ? Then we must have at
the bowl.’
‘ Many a good man has drunk from it,’ says Mr. Benson ;
and the lads one after another, and bowing first to their
military acquaintance, touched the bowl with their lips.
The liquor did not seem to be much diminished for the
boys’ drinking, though George especially gave himself a
toper’s airs, and protested it was delicious after their ride.
He called out to Colonel Washington, who was at the
porch, to join his friends, and drink.
The lad’s tone was offensive, and resembled the manner
lately adopted by him, and which had so much chafed
Mr. Washington. He bowed, and said he was not thirsty.
‘ Nay, the liquor is paid for,’ says George, ‘ never fear,
colonel.’
‘ I said I was not thirsty. I did not say the liquor was
not paid for,’ said the young colonel, drumming with his
foot.
‘ When the king’s health is proposed, an officer can
hardly say no. I drink the health of his Majesty, gentle-
men,’ cried George. ‘ Colonel Washington can drink it or
leave it. The king ! ’
104
THE VmOINIAHS
This was a point of military honour. The two British
officers of Halkett’s, Captain Grace and Mr. Waring, both
drank the king. Harry Warrington drank the king.
Colonel Washington, with glaring eyes, gulped, too, a slight
draught from the bowl.
Then Captain Grace proposed ‘ the duke and the army
which toast there was likewise no gainsaying. Colonel
Washington had to swallow the duke and the army.
‘ You don’t seem to stomach the toast, colonel,’ said
George.
‘ I tell you again, I don’t want to drink,’ replied the
colonel. ‘ It seems to me the duke and the army would
be served all the better if their healths were not drunk
so often.’
‘ You are not up to the ways of regular troops as yet,’
said Captain Grace, with rather a thick voice.
‘ Maybe not, sir.’
‘ A British officer,’ continues Captain Grace, with great
energy but doubtful articulation, ‘never neglects a toast
of that sort, nor any other duty. A man who refuses to
drink the health of the duke — ^hang me, such a man should
be tried by a court-martial ! ^
‘ What means this language to me ? You are drunk,
sir I ’ roared Colonel Washin^^on, jumping up, and striking
the table with his fist.
‘ A cursed provincial officer say I’m drunk ! ’ shrieks out
Captain Grace. ‘ Waring, do you hear that ? ’
‘ I heard it, sir ! ’ eriSd G^^rge Warrington. ‘ We all
heard it. He entered at my invitation — ^the liquor called
for was mine : the table was mine — and I am shocked to
hear such monstrous language used at it as Colonel Washing-
ton has just employed towards my esteemed guest, Captain
Waring,’
‘ Confound your impudence, you infernal young jacka-
napes ! ’ bellowed out Colonel Washington. ‘ You dare to
insult me before British officers, and find fault with my
language ? For months past, I have borne with such
impudence from you, that if I had not loved your mother —
yes, sir, and your good grandfather and your brother —
I would — ^I would ’ Here his words failed him, and
the irate colonel, with glaring eyes and purple face, and
every limb quivering with wrath, stood for a moment
speechless before his young enemy.
A HOT AFTERNOON
105
‘ You would what, sir ? ’ says George, very quietly, ^ if
you did not love my grandfather, and my brother, and
my mother ? You are making her petticoat a plea for
some conduct of yours — ^you would do what, sir, may I ask
again ? ’
' I would put you across my knee and whip you, you
snarling little puppy, that’s what I would do I ’ cried the
colonel, who had found breath by this time, and vented
another explosion of fury.
‘ Because you have Imown us all our lives, and made
our house your own, that is no reason you should insult
either of us ! ’ here cried Harry, starting up. ‘ What you
have said, George Washington, is an insult to me and my
brother alike. You will ask our pardon, sir ! ’
‘ Pardon ? ’
‘ Or give us the reparation that is due to gentlemen,^
continues Harry.
The stout colonel’s heart smote him to think that he
should be at mortal quarrel or called upon to shed the
blood of one of the lads he loved. As Harry stood facing
him with his fair hair, flushing cheeks, and quivering voice,
an immense tenderness and kindness filled the bosom of
the elder man. ‘ I — am bewildered,’ he said. ‘ My words,
perhaps, were very hasty. What has been the meaning
of George’s behaviour to me for months back ? Only tell
me, and, perhaps
The evil spirit was awake and victorious in young George
Warrington : his black eyes shot out scorn and hatred at
the simple and guileless gentleman before him. ‘ You are
shirking from the question, sir, as you did from the toast
just now,’ he said. ‘ I am not a boy to suffer under your
arrogance. You have publicly insulted me in a public
place, and I demand a reparation.’
‘ In Heaven’s name, be it ! ’ says Mr. Washington, with
the deepest grief in his face.
‘ And you have insulted me,’ continues Captain Grace,
reeling towards him. ‘ What was it he said ? Confound
the militia captain — colonel, what is he ? You’ve insulted
me ! Oh, Waring ! to think I should be insulted by a
captain of mihtia 1 ’ And tears bedewed the noble captain’s
cheek as this harrowing thought crossed his mind.
‘ I insult you, you hog 1 ’ the colonel again yelled out,
for he was little affected by humour, and had no disposition
r! 3
i06
THE VIRGINIAI^S
to laugh as the others had at the scene. And, behold, at
this minute a fourth adversary was upon him.
‘ Great Powers, sir ! ’ said Captain Waring, ‘ are three
affairs not enough for you, and must I come into the
quarrel, too ? You have a quarrel with these two young
gentlemen.’
‘ Hasty words, sir I ’ cries poor Harry once more.
‘ Hasty words, sir 1 ’ cries Captain Waring. ‘ A gentle-
man tells another gentleman that he will put him across
his knees and whip him, and you call those hasty words ?
Let me tell you if any man were to say to me, “ Charles
Waring,” or “ Captain Waring, I’ll put you across my knees
and whip you,” I’d say, “I’ll drive my cheese-toaster
through his body,” if he were as big as Goliath, I would.
That’s one affair -with young Mr. George Warrington.
Mr. Harry, of course, as a young man of spirit, will stand
by his brother. That’s two. Between Grace and the
colonel apology is impossible. And, now — ^run me through
the body ! You call an officer of my regiment — of Hal-
kett’s, sir ! — a hog before my face ! Great Heavens, sir !
Mr. Washington ! are you aU like this in Virginia ? Excuse
me, I would use no off^msive personality, as, by George !
I will suffer none from any man I but, by Gad, colonel !
give me leave to tell you that you are the most quarrel-
some man I ever saw in my life. Call a disabled officer
of my regiment — ^for he is disabled, ain’t you, Grace ? —
call him a hog before me I You withdraw it, sir — ^you
withdraw it ? ’
‘ Is this some infernal conspiracy in which you are all
leagued against me ? ’ shouted the colonel. ‘ It would
seem as if I was drunk, and not you, as you all are. I with-
draw nothing, I apologize for nothing. By Heavens !
I will meet one or half a dozen of you in your turn, young
or old, drunk or ^ober.’
‘ I do not wish to hear myself called more names,’ cried
Mr. George Warrington. ‘This affair can proceed, sir,
without any further insult on your part. When will it
please you to give me the meeting ? ’
‘ The sooner the better, sir ! ’ said the colonel, fuming
with rage.
‘ The sooner the better,’ liiccupped Captain Grace, with
many c^ths needless to print — (in those days, oaths were
the customary garnisJi of all gentlemen’s conversation) —
A HOT AFTERNOON
107
and he rose staggering from his seat, and reeled towards
his sword, which he had laid by the door, and fell as he
reached the weapon. ‘ The sooner the better I ’ the poor
tipsy wretch again cried out from the ground, waving his
weapon and knocking his own hat over his eyes.
‘ At any rate, this gentleman’s business will keep cool
till to-morrow,’ the militia colonel said, turning to the
other king’s officer. ‘ You will hardly bring your man out
to-day, Captain Waring ? ’
‘ I confess that neither his hand nor mine are particularly
steady.’
‘ Mine is ! ’ cried Mr. Warrington, glaring at his enemy.
His comrade of former days was as hot and as savage,
‘ Be it so — ^with what weapon, sir? ’ Washington said sternly.
‘ Not with small-swords, colonel. We can beat you with
them. You know that from our old bouts. Pistols had
better be the word.’
‘ As you please, George Warrington — and God forgive
you, George ! God pardon you, Harry ! for bringing me
into this quarrel I ’ said the colonel, with a face full of sad-
ness and gloom.
Harry hung his head, but George continued with perfect
calmness. ‘ I, sir ? It was not I who called names, who
talked of a cane, who insulted a gentleman in a public
place before gentlemen of the army ? It is not the first
time you have chosen to take me for a negro, and talked
of the whip for me.’
The colonel started back, turning very red, and as if
struck by a sudden remembrance.
" Great Heavens, George ! is it that boyish quarrel you
are still recalling ? ’
‘ Who made you the overseer of Castlewood ? ’ said the
boy, grinding his teeth. ‘ I am not your slave, George
Washington, and I never will be. I hated you then, and
I hate you now. And you have insulted me, and I am
a gentleman, and so are you. Is that not enough ? ’
‘ Too much, only too much,’ said the colonel, with
a genuine grief on his face, and at his heart. ‘ Bo you
bear malice too, Harry ? I had not thought tliis of thee 1 ’
‘ I stand by my brother,’ said Harry, turning away from
the colonel’s look, and grasping George’s hand. The sad-
ness on their adversary’s face did not depart. ‘ Heaven
be good to us ! ’Tis all clear now,’ he muttered to himself*
108
THE VntGINIAJJ^S
‘ The time to write a few letters, and I am at your service,
Mr. Warrington,’ he said.
‘ You have your own pistols at your saddle. I did not
ride out with any ; but will send Sady back for mine.
That will give you time enough. Colonel Washington ? ’
‘ Plenty of time, sir,’ and each gentleman made the
other a low bow, and, putting his arm in his brother’s,
George walked away. The Virginian officer looked towards
the two unlucky captains, who were by this time helpless
with liquor. Captain Benson, the master of the tavern,
was propping the hat of one of them over his head.
‘ It is not altogether their fault, colonel,’ said my land-
lord, with a grim look of humour. ‘Jack Firebrace and
Tom Humbold of Spotsylvania was here this morning,
chanting horses with ’em. And Jack and Tom got ’em
to play cards ; and they didn’t win — ^the British captains
didn’t. And Jack and Tom challenged them to drink
for the honour of Old England, and they didn’t win at
that game, neither, much. They are kind, free-handed
fellows when they are sober, but they are a pretty pair
of fools — ^they are.’
‘ Captain Benson, you were an old frontierman, and an
officer of ours, before you turned farmer and taverner.
You will help me in this matter with yonder young gentle-
men ? ’ said the colonel.
‘ rU stand by and see fair play, colonel. I won’t have
no hand in it, beyond seeing fair play. Madam Esmond
has helped me many a time, tend^ my poor wife in her
lying-in, and doctored our J^tty in the fever. You ain’t
a-goin’ to be very hard with them poor boys ? Though
I seen ’em both shoot : the fair one hunts well, as you
know, but the old one’s a wonder at an ace of spades.’
‘ Will you be pleased to send my man with my valise,
captain, into any private room which you can spare me ?
I must write a few letters before this business comes on.
God grant it were well over ! ’ And the captain led the
colonel into almost the only other room of his house,
calling, with many oaths, to a pack of negro servants, to
disperse thence, who were chattering loudly among one
another, and no doubt discussing the quarrel which had
just taken place. Edwin, the colonel’s man, returned with
his master’s portmanteau, and as he looked from the
window, he saw Sady, George Warrington’s negro, galloping
A HOT AFTERNOON
109
away upon his errand, doubtless, and in the direction of
Castlewood. The colonel, young and naturally hot-headed,
but the most courteous and scrupulous of men, and ever
keeping his strong passions under guard, could not but
think with amazement of the position in which he found
himself, and of the three, perhaps four enemies, who
appeared suddenly before him, menacing his life. How
had this strange series of quarrels been brought about ?
He had ridden away a few hours since from Castlewood,
with his young companions, and, to aU seeming, they were
perfect friends. A shower of rain sends them into a tavern,
where there are a couple of recruiting officers, and they are
not seated for haH an hour at a social table, but he has
quarrelled with the whole company, called this one names,
agreed to meet another in combat, and threatened chastise-
ment to a third, the son of his most intimate friend !
CHAPTER XI
WHEREIN THE TWO GEORGES PREPARE POR BLOOD
HE Virginian colonel remained in
one chamber of the tavern,
occupied with gloomy prepara-
tions for the ensuing meeting ;
his adversary in the other room
thought fit to make his testa-
mentary dispositions, too, and
dictated by his obedient brother
and secretary a grandiloquent
letter to his mother, of whom,
and by that writing, he took a
solemn farewell. She would
hardly, he supposed, pursue the
scheme which she had in view
(a peculiar satirical emphasis w^as
laid upon the scheme which she
had in view), after the event of
that morning, should he fall, as
probably would be the case.
' My dear, dear George, don’t say that ! ’ cried the
affrighted secretary.
no
THE VIRGINIANS
"As probably will be the case,’ George persisted with
great majesty. " You know what a good shot Colonel
George is, Harry. I, myself, am pretty fair at a mark,
and ’tis probable that one or both of ns will drop. — “ I
scarcely suppose you will carry out the intentions you
have at present in view.” ’ This was uttered in a tone
of still greater bitterness than George had used even in
the previous phrase. Harry wept as he took it dovui.
" You see I say nothing ; Madam Esmond’s name does
not ever appear in the quarrel. Do you not remember
in our gran(Mather’s life of himself, how’ he says that Lord
Castlewood fought Lord Mohun on a pretext of a quarrel
at cards ? and never so much as hinted at the lady’s name,
who was the real cause of the duel ? I took my hint.
I confess, from that, Harry. Our mother is not com-
promised in the . Why, child, what have you been
vTiting, and who taught thee to speU ? ’ Harry had written
the last words ‘ in view’, "in vew ’, and a great blot of salt
water from his honest, boyish eyes may have obliterated
some other bad spelling.
" I can’t think about the spelling now, Georgy,’ whim-
pered George’s clerk. " I’m too miserable for that. I
begin to think, perhaps, it’s all nonsense, perhaps Colonel
George never ’
" Never meant to take possession of Castlewood ; never
gave himseK airs, and patronized us there ; never advised
my mother to have me flogged, never intended to marry
her; never insulted me, and w'^as insulted before the
king’s officers ; never wrote to his brother to say we
should be the better for his parental authority ? The
paper is there,’ cried the young man, slapping Ins breast
pocket, " and if anything happens to me, Harry Warrington,
you will find it on my corse ! ’
"Write yourself, Georgy, I carCt write,’ says Harry,
digging his fists into his eyes, and smearing over the whole
composition, bad spelling and all, with his elbows.
On this, George, taking another sheet of paper, sat down
at his brother’s place, and produced a composition in which
he introduced the longest words, the grandest Latin quota-
tions, and the most profound satire of which the youthful
scribe was master. He desired that his negro boy, Sady,
should be set free, that his Horace, a choice of his books,
and, if possible, a suitable provision should be made for
THE TWO GEOEGES PEEPARE FOE BLOOD 113
his affectionate tutor, Mr. Dempster ; that his silver fruit-
knife, his music-books, and harpsichord, should be given
to little Fanny Mountain ; and that his brother should
take a lock of his hair, and wear it in memory of his ever
fond and faithfully attached George. And he sealed the
document with the seal of arms that his grandfather had
worn.
‘ The watch, of course, will be yours,’ said George, taking
out his grandfather’s gold w^atch and looking at it. ‘ Why,
two hours and a half are gone 1 ’Tis time that Sady should
be back with the pistols. Take the watch, Hany dear.’
‘ It’s no good ! ’ cried out Harry, flinging his arms round
his brother. ‘ If he fights you, I’ll fight him, too. If he
kills my Georgy, him, he shall have a shot at me ! ’
and the poor lad uttered more than one of those expressions,
which are said peculiarly to affect recording angels, who
have to take them down at celestial chanceries.
Meanwhile, General Braddock’s new aide de camp had
written five letters in his large resolute hand, and sealed
them with his seal. One was to his mother, at Mount
Vernon ; one to his brother ; one was addressed M. C.
only ; and one to his excellency, Major-General Braddock ;
‘ And one, young gentlemen, is for your mother, Madam
Esmond,’ said the boys’ informant.
Again the recording angd had to fly off with a violent
expression, which parted from the lips of George Warrington.
The chancery previously mentioned was crowded with
such cases, and the messengers must have been for ever
on the wing. But I fear for young George and his oath
there was no excuse; for it was an execration uttered
from a heart full of hatred, and rage, and jealousy.
It was the landlord of the tavern who communicated
these facts to the young men. The captain had put on
his old militia uniform to do honour to the occasion, and
informed the boys that the colonel was w^alking up and
down the garden a-waitiug for ’em, and that the reg’lars
was a’most sober, too, by this time.
A plot of ground near the captam’s log-house had been
enclosed with shingles, and cleared for a kitchen garden ;
there indeed paced Colonel Washington, his hands behind
his back, his head bowed down, a grave sorrow on his
handsome face. The negro servants were crowded at the
palings, and looking over. The officers under the porch had
114
THE VIRGINIANS
wakened up also, as their host remarked. Captain Waring
was walking, almost steadily, under the balcony formed by
the sloping porch and roof of the wooden house ; and
Captain Grace was lolling over the railing, with eyes which
stared very much, though, perhaps, they did not see very
clearly. Benson’s was a famous rendezvous for cock-fights,
horse-matches, boxing, and wTestling matches, such as
brought the Virginian country-folks together. There had
been many brawls at Benson’s, and men who came thither
sound and sober had gone thence with ribs broken and
eyes gouged out. And squires, and farmers, and negroes,
all participated in the sport.
There, then, stalked the tall young colonel, plunged in
dismal meditation. There was no way out of his scrape,
but the usual cruel one, which the laws of honour and the
practice of the country ordered. Goaded into fury by the
impertinence of a boy, he had used insulting words. The
young man had asked for reparation. He was shocked to
think that George Wairington’s jealousy and revenge
should have rankled in the young fellow so long : but the
wrong had been the colonel’s, and he was bound to pay
the forfeit.
A great hallooing and shouting, such as negroes use,
who love noise at all times, and especially delight to yell
and scream when galloping on horseback, was now heard
at a distance, and all the heads, woolly and powdered,
were turned in the direction of this outcry. It came
from the road over which our travellers had themselves
passed tliree hours before, and, presently, the clattering
of horses’ hoofs was heard, and now Mr. Sady made his
appearance on his foaming horse, and actually fired a pistol
off in the midst of a prodigious uproar from his w’^oolly
brethren. Then he fired another pistol off, to which
noises Sady’s horse, which had carried Harry Warrington
on many a hunt, was perfectly accustomed ; and now
he was in the courtyard, surrounded by a score of his
bawling comrades, and w€is descending amidst fluttering
fowls and turkeys, kicking horses and shrieking frantic
pigs«, and brother negroes crowded round him, to whom
he instantly began to talk and chatter.
‘ Sady, sir, come here ! ’ roars out Master Harry.
‘ Sady, come here ! confound you I ’ shouts Master
George. (Again the recording angel is in requisition, and
THE TWO GEORGES PREPARE FOR BLOOD 115
has to be off on one of his endless errands to the register
office). ‘ Come directly, mas’r,’ says Sady, and resumes
his conversation with his woolly brethren. He grins.
He takes the pistols out of the holster. He snaps the
locks. He points them at a grunter, which plunges through
the farmyard. He points down the road, over which he
has just galloped, and towards which the woolly heads
again turn. He says again, ‘ Cornin’, mas’r. Everybody
a-comin’.’ And now, the gallop of other horses is heard.
And who is yonder ? little Dempster, spurring and
digging into his pony ; and that lady in a riding habit
on Madam Esmond’s little horse, can it be Madam Esmond ?
No. It is too stout. As I live, it is Mrs. Mountain on
madam’s grey !
‘ 0 Lor’ ! 0 golly ! Hoop ! Here dey come ! Hur-
ray ! ’ A chorus of negroes rises up. ‘ Here dey are ! ’
Dr. Dempster and Mrs. Mountain have clattered into the
yard, have jumped from their horses, have elbowed through
the negroes, have rushed into the house, have run through
it and across the porch, where the British officers are sitting
in muzzy astonishment ; have run down the stairs to the
garden where George and Harry are walking, their tall
enemy stalking opposite to them ; and almost ere George
Warrington has had time sternly to say, ‘ What do you
do here, madam ? ’ Mrs. Mountain has flung her arms
round his neck and cries : ‘ Oh, George, my darling ! It’s
a mistake ! It’s a mistake, and is all my fault ! ’
‘What’s a mistake?’ asks George, majestically separating
himself from the embrace.
‘ What is it, Mounty ?’ cries Harry, all of a tremble.
‘ That paper I took out of his portfolio, that paper
I picked up, children ; where the colonel says he is going
to marry a widow with two children. Who should it be
but you, children, and who should it be but your mother ? ’
‘ Well ? ’
‘ Well, it’s — ^it’s not your mother. It’s that little widow
Curtis whom the colonel is going to marry. He’d always
take a rich one ; I knew he would. It’s not Mrs. Rachel
Warrington. He told madam so to-day, just before he
was going away, and that the marriage was to come off
after the campaign. And — ^and your mother is furious,
boys. And when Sady came for the pistols, and told the
whole house how you were going to fight, I told him to
116
THE VTHGINIANS
fire the pistols off ; and I galloped after him, and I’ve
nearly broken my poor old bon^ in coming to you.’
‘ I have a mind to break Mr, Sady’s,’ growled George.
‘ I specially enjoined the villain not to say a word.’
* Thank God he did, brother,’ said poor Harry. ‘ Thank
God he did ! ’
" What will Mr. Washington and those gentlemen think
of my servant telling my mother at home that I was
going to fight a duel ? ’ asks Mr. George, still in wrath.
‘ You have shown your proofs before, George,’ says
Harry respectfully. ‘And, thank Heaven, you are not
going to fight our old friend, — our grandfather’s old friend.
For it was a mistake : and there is no quarrel now, dear,
is there ? You were unkind to him under a wrong im-
pression.’
‘ I certainly acted under a wrong impression,’ owns
George, ‘but ’
‘ G^rge I George Washington ! ’ Harry here cries out,
springing over the cabbage-garden towards the bowling-
green, where the colonel was stalking, and though we
cannot hear him, we see him, with both his hands out,
and with the eagerness of youth, and with a hundred
blunders, and with love and affection thrilling in his honest
voice, we imagine the lad telling his tale to his friend.
There was a custom in those days w^hich has disappeared
from our manners now, but which then lingered. WTien
Harry had finished his artless story, his friend the colonel
took him fairly to his arms, and held him to his heart :
and his voice faltered as he said, ‘ Thank God, thank God
for this ! ’
‘ Oh, George,’ said Harry, who felt now how he loved
his friend with all his heart, ‘how I wish I was going
with you on the campaign 1 ’ The other pressed both
the boy’s hands, in a grasp of friendship, which, each
knew, never would slacken.
Then the colonel advanced, gravely holding out his
hand to Harry’s elder brother. Perhaps Harry wondered
that the two did not embrace as he and the colonel had
just done. But, though hands were joined, the salutation
was only formal and stern on both sides.
‘ I find I have done you a wrong. Colonel Washington,’
George said, ‘and must apologize, not for the error, but
for much of my late behaviour which has resulted from it/
THE TWO GEORGES PREPARE FOR BLOOD 117
‘ The error was mine ! It was I who found that paper
in your room, and showed it to George, and w’as jealous
of you, colonel. All women are jealous,’ cried Mrs. Moun-
tain.
‘ ’Tis a pity you could not have kept your eyes off my
paper, madam,’ said Mr. Washington. ‘You will permit
me to say so. A great deal of mischief has come because
I chose to keep a secret which concerned only myself and
another person. For a long time, George Warrington’s
heart has been black with anger against me, and my feeling
towards him has, I own, scarce been more friendly. All
this pain might have been spared to both of us, had
my private papers only been read by those for whom
they were written. I shall say no more now, lest my
feelings again should betray me into hasty words. Heaven
bless thee, Harry 1 Farewell, George 1 And take a true
friend’s advice, and try and be less ready to think evil
of your friends. We shall meet again at the camp, and
will keep our weapons for the enemy. Gentlemen 1 if
you remember this scene to-morrow, you will know where
to find me.’ And with a very stately bow to the English
officers, the colonel left the abashed company, and speedily
rode away.
118
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER Xn
NEWS PBOM THE CAMP
E must fancy that the
parting between the
brothers is over, that
George has taken his
place in Mr. Braddock’s
family, and Harry has
returned home to Castle-
wood and his duty. His
heart is with the army,
and his pursuits at
home offer the boy no
pleasure. He does not
care to own how deep
his disappointment is, at
being obliged to stay
under the homely, quiet
roof, now more melan-
choly than ever since
George is away. Harry
passes his brother’s'empty
chamber with an averted face ; takes George’s place at
the head of the table, and sighs as he drinks from his
silver tankard. Madam Warrington calls the toast of
‘ the king ’ stoutly every day ; and, on Sundays, when
Harry reads the &rvice, and prays for all travellers by
land and by w^ater, she says, ‘We beseech thee to hear
us,’ with a peculiar solemnity. She insists on talking
about George constantly, but quite cheerfully, and as if
his return w^as certain. She w^alks into his vacant room,
with head upright, and no outw^ard signs of emotion. She
sees that his books, linen, papers, &c.,are arranged with care ;
talking of him with, a very special respect, and specially
appealing to the old servants at meals, and so forth, regard-
ing things 'which are to be done ‘ w^hen Mi\ George comes
home’. Mrs. Mountain is constantly on the whimper
when George’s name is mentioned, and Harry’s face wears
a look of the most ghastly alarm ; but his mother’s is
NEWS EROM THE CAMP
119
invariably grave and sedate. She makes more blunders
at piquet and backgammon than you would expect from
her ; and the servants find her awake and dressed, how^ever
early they may rise. She has prayed Mr. Dempster to
come back into residence at Castlewood. She is not
severe or haughty (as her wont certainly was) with any
of the party, but quiet in her talk with them, and gentle
in assertion and reply. She is for ever talking of her father
and his campaigns, who came out of them all with no
very severe wounds to hurt him ; and so she hopes and
trusts will her eldest son.
George UTites frequent letters home to his brother, and,
now the army is on its march, compiles a rough journal,
which he forwards as occasion serves. This document
is perused with great delight and eagerness by the youth
to whom it is addressed, and more than once read out
in family council, on the long summer nights, as Madam
Esmond sits upright at her tea-table — (she never con-
descends to use the back of a chair) — as little Fanny Moun-
tain is busy with her sewing, as Mr. Dempster and Mrs.
Mountain sit over their cardi, as the hushed old servants
of the house move about silently in the gloaming, and listen
to the words of the young master. Hearken to Harry
Warrington reading out his brother’s letter 1 As we look
at the slim characters on the yellow page, fondly kept
and put aside, we can almost fancy him alive who wTote
and who read it — and yet, lo ! they are as if they never
had been ; their portraits faint images in frames of tarnished
gold. Were they real once, or are they mere phantasms ?
Did they live and die once ? Did they love each other
as true brothers and loyal gentlemen ? Can we hear
their voices in the past ? Sure I know Harry’s, and yonder
he sits in the warm summer evening, and reads his young
brother’s simple story : —
‘ It must be owned that the provinces are acting scurvfiy
by his Majesty King George II, and his representative
here is in a fiame of fury. Virginia is bad enough, and
poor Maryland not much better, but Pennsylvania is worst
of all. We pray them to send us troops from home to
fight the French ; and we promise to maintain the troops
when they come. We not only don’t keep our promise,
and make scarce any provision for our defenders, but our
people insist upon the most exorbitant prices for their
120
THE VIRGINIANS
cattle and stores, and actually cheat the soldiers who are
come to fight their battles. No wonder the general swears,
and the troops are sulky. The delays have been endless.
Owing to the failure of the several provinces to provide
their promised stores and means of locomotion, weeks and
months have elapsed, during which time, no doubt, the
French have been strengthening themselves on our frontier
and in the forts they have turned us out of. Though there
never will be any love lost between me and Colonel Washing-
ton, it must be owned that your favourite (I am not jealous,
Hal) is a brave man and a good officer. The family respect
him very much, and the general is always asking his opinion.
Indeed, he is almost the only man who has seen the Indians
in their war-paint, and I own I think he was right in firing
upon Mons. Jumonville last year.
‘ There is to be no more mite to that other quarrel at
Benson’s Tavern than there was to the proposed battle
between Colonel W. and a certain young gentleman who
shall be namele^. Captain Waring wished to pursue it
on coming into camp, and brought the message from Captain
Grace, which your friend, who is as bold as Hector, was
for taking up, and employed a brother aide de camp,
Colonel Win^dd, on his side. But when Wingfield heard
the circumstances of the quarrel, how it had arisen
from Grace being drunk, and was fomented by Waring
being tipsy, and how the two 4:4th gentlemen had chosen
to insult a militia officer, he swore that Colonel Washington
should not meet the 44th men ; that he would carry the
matter straightway to his excellency, who would bring
the two caplins to a court-martial for brawling with the
militia, and drunkeimess, and indecent behaviour, and
the captains were fain to put up their toasting-irons, and
swallow their wrath. They were good-natured enough out
of their cups, and ate their humble pie with very good
appetites at a reconciliation dinner which Colonel W. had
with the 44th, and where he was as perfectly stupid and
correct as Prince Prettyman need be. Hang him ! He
has no faults, and that’s why I dislike him. When he
marries that widow— ah me ! what a dreary life she will
have of it.’
‘ I wonder at the taste of some men, and the effiontery
of some women,’ says Madam Esmond, laying her tea-
cup down. ‘ I wonder at any woman who has been married
NEWS FROM THE CAMP
121
once, so forgetting herself as to marry again I I>on't you,
Mountain ? ’
‘ Monstrous ! ’ says Mountain with a queer look.
Dempster keeps his eyes steadily fix^ on his glass of
punch. Harry looks as if he was choking with laughter,
or with some other concealed emotion, but his mother
says, ‘ Go on, Harry ! Continue with your brother’s
journal. He wTites well : but ah, will he ever be able
to write like my papa ? ’
Harry resumes. ‘ We keep the strictest order here in
camp, and the orders against drunkenness and ill-behaviour
on the part of the men are very severe. The roll of each
company is called at morning, noon, and night, and a
return of the absent and disorderly is given in by the
officer, to the eommai^iding officer of the regiment, \vho
has to see that they are properly punished. The men
are punished, and the drummers are always at w^ork.
Oh, Harry, but it made one sick to see the first blood drawn
from a great strong white back, and to hear the piteous
yell of the poor fellow.’
* Oh, horrid I ’ says Madam Esmond.
‘ I think I should have murdered Ward if he had flogged
me. Thank Heaven he got off with only a crack of the ruler 1
The mew, I say, are looked after carefully enough. I wish
the officers were. The Indians have just broken up their
camp, and retired in dudgeon, because the young officers
w^ere for ever drinking with the squaws — and — ^and — ^hum —
ha.’ Here Mr. Harry pauses, as not caring to proceed
with the narrative, in the presence of little Fanny, very
likely, who sits primly in her chair by her mother’s side,
w’orking her little sampler.
‘ Pass over that about the odious tipsy creatures,’ says
madam. And Harry commences, in a loud tone, a much
more satisfactory statement. ‘ Each regiment has Divine
Service performed at the head of its colours every Sunday.
The general does everything in the power of mortal man
to prevent plundering, and to encourage the people round
about to bring in provisions. He has declared soldiers
shall be shot who dare to interrupt or molest the market
people. He has ordered the price of provisions to be
raised a penny a pound, and has lent money out of his
own pocket to provide the camp. Altogether, he is a strange
compound, this general. He flogs his men without mercy,
122
THE VIRGINIANS
but he gives without stint. He swears most tremendous
oaths in conversation, and tells stories which Mountain
would be shocked to hear
‘ Why me ? ’ asks Mountain ; ‘ and what have I to do
with the general’s silly stories ? ’
‘ Never mind the stories ; and go on, Harry,’ cries the
mistress of the house.
‘ — ^would be shocked to hear after dinner ; but he never
misses service. He adores his great duke, and has his
name constantly on his lips. Our two regiments both
served in Scotland, where I dare say Mr. Dempster knew
the colour of their facings.’
‘ We saw the tails of their coats, as well as their facings,’
growk the little Jacobite tutor.
‘ Colonel Washington has had tl^e fever very smartly,
and has hardly been well enough to keep up with the march.
Had he not better go home and be nursed by his widow ?
When either of us is HI, we are almost as good friends
again as ever. But I feel somehow as if I can’t forgive
him for having wronged him. Good Powers 1 How I
have been hating him for these months past ! Oh, Harry !
I was in a fury at the tavern the other day, because Mountain
came up so soon, and put an end to our difference. We
ought to have burned a little gunpowder between us
and cleared the air. But though I don’t love him as you
do, I know he is a good soldier, a good ofScer, and a brave,
honest man ; and, at any rate, shall love him none the
worse for not wanting to be our stepfather.’
‘ A stepfather, indeed ! ’ cries Harry’s mother. ‘ Why,
jealousy and prejudice have perfectly maddened the poor
child 1 Do you suppose the Marquis of Esmond’s daughter
and heiress could not have found other stepfathers for her
sons than a mere provincial surveyor ? H there are any
more such allusions in George’s journal, I beg you skip
’em, Harry, my dear. About this piece of folly and blunder-
ing, there hath been quite talk enough already.’
‘ ’Tis a pretty sight,’ Harry continued, readSng from his
brother’s journal, ‘ to see a long line of red-coats, threading
through the woods or taking their ground after the march.
The care against surprise is so great and constant, that
we defy prowling Indians to come unawares upon us,
and our advanced sentries and savages have on the contrary
fallen in with the enemy and taken a scalp or two from
NEWS FROM THE CAMP
123
them. They are such cruel villains, these French and
their painted allies, that we do not think of showing them
mercy. Only think, we found but yesterday a little boy
scalped but yet alive in a lone house, where his parents
had been attacked and murdered by the savage enemy,
of whom — so great is his indignation at their cruelty —
our general has offered a reward of £5 for all the Indian
scalps brought in.
‘ When our march is over, you should see our camp and
all the care bestowed on it. Our baggage and our general’s
tents and guard are placed quite in the centre of th^e camp.
We have outlying sentries by twos, by threes, by tens,
by whole companies. At the least surprise, they are
instructed to run in on the main body, and rally round
the tents and baggage, which are so arranged themselves as
to be a strong fortification. Sady and I, you must know,
are marching on foot now, and my horses are carrying bag-
gage. The Pennsylvanians sent such rascally animals into
camp that they speedily gave in. What good horses were
left, ’twas our duty to give up : and Roxana has a couple of
packs upon her back instead of her young master. She l^ows
me right well, and whinnies when she sees me, and I walk
by her side, and we have many a talk together on the march.
^ July 4. To guard against surprises, we are all warned
to pay especial attention to the beat of the drum ; always
halting when we hear the long roll beat, and marching
at the beat of the long march. We are more on the alert
regarding the enemy now. We have our advanced pickets
doubled, and two sentries at every post. The men on the
advanced pickets are constantly xmder arms, with fixed
bayonets, all through the night, and relieved every two
hours. The half that are relieved lie down by their arms,
but are not suffered to leave their pickets. ’Tis evident
that we are drawing very near to the enemy now. This
packet goes out with the general’s to Colonel Dunbar’s
camp, who is thirty miles behind us ; and will be carried
thence to Frederick, and thence to my honoured mother’s
house at Castlewood, to whom I send my duty, with kindest
remembrances, as to all friends there, and how much love
I need not say to my dearest brother from his affectionate
Geobge E. Wabrington.’
The whole land was now lying parched and scorching
124
THE VIRGINIANS
in the July heat. For ten days no news had come from
the column advancing on the Ohio. Their march, though
it toiled but slowly through the painful forest, must bring
them ere long up with the enemy ; the troops, led by
consummate captains, were accustomed now to the wilder-
ness, and not afraid of surprise. Every precaution had
been taken against ambush. It was the outlying enemy
who were discovered, pursued, destroyed, by the vigilant
scouts and skirmishers of the British force. The last
news heard was that the army had advanced considerably
beyond the ground of Mr. Washington’s discomfiture on
the previous year, and two days after must be within a
day’s march of the French fort. About taking it no fears
were entertained ; the amount of the French reinforcements
from Montreal was known, llfc. Braddock, with his two
veteran regiments from Britain, and their allies of Virginia
and Pennsylvania, were more than a match for any troops
that could be collected under the white flag.
Such continued to be the talk, in the sparse towns of
our Virginian province, at the gentry’s houses, and the
rough roadside taverns, where people met and canvassed
the war. The few messengers who were sent back by the
general reported well of the main force. ’Twas thought
the enemy would not stand or defend himself at all. Had
he intended to attack, he might have seized a dozen occasions
for assaulting our troops at passes through which they
had been allowed to go entirely free. So George had given
up his favourite mare, like a hero as he was, and was
marching a-foot with the line ? Madam Esmond vowed
that he should have the best horse in Virginia or Carolina
in place of Roxana. There were horses enough to be had
in the provinces, and for money. It was only for the
king’s service that they were not forthcoming.
Although at their family meetings and repasts the
inmates of Castlewood always talked cheerfully, never
anticipating any but a triumphant issue to the campaign,
or acknowledging any feeling of disquiet, yet, it must
be owned, they were mighty uneasy when at home, quitting
it ceaselessly, and for ever on the trot from one neighbour’s
house to another in quest of news. It was prodigious how
quicMy reports ran and spread. When, for instance, a
certain noted border warrior, called Colonel Jack, had
ofiered himself and his huntsmen to the general, who had
NEWS FROM THE CAMP
125
declined the ruffian’s terms or his proffered service, the
defection of Jack and his men was the talk of thousands
of tongues immediately. The house negroes, in their
midnight gallops about the country, in search of junketing
or sweethearts, brought and spread news over amazingly
wide districts. They had a curious knowledge of the
incidents of the march for a fortnight at least after its
commencement. They knew and laughed at the cheats
practised on the army, for horses, provisions, and the
like ; for a good bargain over the foreigner was not an
unfrequent or unpleasant practice among New Yorkers,
Pennsylvanians, or Marylanders ; though ’tis known that
American folks have become perfectly artless and simple
in later times, and never grasp, and never overreach,
and are never selfish now. For three weeks after the
army’s departure the thousand reports regarding it were
cheerful ; and when our Castlewood friends met at their
supper, their tone was confident and their news pleasant.
But on the 10th of July a vast and sudden gloom spread
over the province. A look of terror and doubt seemed
to fall upon every face. Affrighted negroes wistfully eyed
their masters and retired, and hummed and whispered
with one another. The fiddles ceased in the quarters ;
thCiSonig and laugh of those cheery black folk w'ere hushed.
Right and left, everybody’s servants were on the gallop
for news. The country taverns were thronged with horse-
men, who drank and cursed and brawled* at the ]^rs, each
bringing his gloomy story. The army had been surprised.
The troops had fallen into an ambuscade, and had been
cut up almost to a man. All the officers were taken down
by the French marksmen and the savages. The general
had been wounded, and carried off the field in his sash.
Four days afterwards the report was that the general was
dead, and scalped by a French Indian.
Ah, what a scream poor Mrs. Mountain gave, when
Gumbo brought this news from across the James River,
and little Fanny sprang crying to her mother’s arms !
‘ Lord God Almighty, watch over us, and defend my boy ! ’
said Mrs. Esmond, sinking down on her knees, and lifting
her rigid hands to heaven. The gentlemen were not at
home when this rumour arrived, but they came in an hour
or two afterwards, each from his hunt for news. The Scots
tutor did not dare to look up and meet the widow’s agonizing
126
THE VIRGINIANS
looks. Harry Warrington was as pale as his mother. It
might not be true about the manner of the general’s death —
but he was dead. The army had been surprised by Indians,
and had fled, and been killed without seeing the enemy.
An express had arrived from Dunbar’s camp. Fugitives
were pouring in there. Should he go and see ? He must
go and see. He and stout little Dempster armed themselves
and mounted, taking a couple of mounted servants with
them.
They followed the northward track which the expe-
ditionary army had hewed out for itself, and at every
step which brought them nearer to the scene of action,
the disaster of the fearful day seemed to magnify. The
day after the defeat a number of the miserable fugitives
from the fatal battle of the 9th July had reached Dunbar’s
camp, fifty miles from the field. Thither poor Harry
and his companions rode, stopping stragglers, asking
news, giving money, getting from one and all the same
gloomy tale — thousand men were slain — two-thirds
of the officers were down — ^All the general’s aides de camp
were hit. Were hit ? — but were they killed ? Those
who fell never rose again. The tomahawk did its work
upon them. O brother, brother ! All the fond memo-
ries of their youth, all the dear remembrances of their
childhood, the love and the laughter, the tender romantic
vows which they had pledged to each other as lads, were
recalled by Harry with pangs inexpressibly keen. Wounded
men looked up and were softened by his grief : rough
women melted as they saw the woe written on the hand-
some young faoe : the hardy old tutor could scarcely look
at him for tears, and griev^ for him even more than for
his dear pupil who lay dead under the savage Indian Imife,
129
CHAPTER XIII
PBOFITLESS QUEST
T every step which
Harry Warrington
took towards
Pennsylvania, the
reports of the Bri-
tish disaster were
magnified and con-
firmed. Those two
famous regiments
which had fought
in the Scottish
and Continental
wars, had fiedfrom
an enemy almost
unseen, and their
boasted discipline
and valour had
not enabled them
to face a band
of savages and a few French infantry. The unfortunate
commander of the expe^tion had shown the utmost
bravery and resolution. Four times his horse had
been shot under him. Tvice he had been wounded,
and the last time of the mortal hurt which ended his life
three days after the battle. More than one of Harry’s
informants described the action to the poor lad, — ^the
passage of the river, the long line of advance through the
wilderness, the firing in front, the vain struggle of the men
to advance, and the artillery to clear the way of the enemy ;
then the ambushed fire from behind every bush and tree,
and the murderous fusillade, by which at least half of the
expeditionary force had been shot down. But not all
the general’s suite were killed, Harry heard. One of his
aides de camp, a Virginian gentleman, was ill of fever and
exhaustion at Dunbar’s camp.
One of them — but which ? To the camp Harry hurried,
and reached it at length. It was George Washington
VIEGINIANS S'
130
THE VIRGINIANS
Harry found stretched in a tent there, and not his brother.
A sharper pain than that of the fever Mr. Washington
declared he felt, when he saw Harry Warrington, and
could give him no news of George.
Mr. Washington did not dare to tell Harry all. For
three days after the fight, his duty had been to be near the
general. On the fatal 9th of July, he had seen George go
to the front with orders from the chief, to whose side he
never returned. After Braddock himself died, the aide
de camp had found means to retrace his course to the field.
The corpses which remained there were stripped and
horridly mutilated. One body he buried which he thought
to be George Warrington’s. His own illness was increased,
perhaps occasioned by the anguish which he underwent
in his search for the unhappy young volunteer.
* Ah, George ! If you had loved him you would have
found him dead or alive,’ Harry cried out. Nothing would
satisfy him but that he, too, should go to the ground and
examine it. With money he procured a guide or two.
He forded the river at the place where the army had passed
over : he went from one end to the other of the dreadful
field. It was no longer haxmted by Indians now. The
birds of prey were feeding on the mangled festering car-
casses. Save in his own grandfather, lying very calm,
with a sweet smile on his lip, Harry had never yet seen
the face of Death. The horrible spectacle of mutilation
caused him to turn away with shudder and loathing. What
news could the vacant woods, or those festering corpses lying
under the trees, give the lad of his lost brother ? He was
for going, unarmed, and with a white flag, to the Prench
fort, whither, after their victory, the enemy had returned ;
but his guides refused to advance with him. The Prench
might possibly respect them, but the Indians would not.
‘ Keep your hair for your lady-mother, my young gentle-
man,’ said the guide. * ’Tis enough that she loses one son
in this campaign.’
When Harry returned to the English encampment at Dun-
bar’s, it was his turn to be down with the fever. Delirium
set in upon him, and he lay some time in the tent and on
the bed from which his friend had just risen convalescent.
Por some days he did not know who watched him ; and
poor Dempster, who had tended him in more than one of
these maladies, thought the widow must lose both her
PROFITLESS QUEST
131
children ; but the fever was so far subdued that the boy
was enabled to rally somewhat, and get to horseback.
Mr. Washington and Dempster both escorted him home.
It was with a heavy heart, no doubt, that all three beheld
once more the gates of Castlewood.
A servant in advance had been sent to announce their
coming. First came Mrs. Mountain and her little daughter,
welcoming Harry with many tears and embraces, but
she scarce gave a nod of recognition to Mr. Washington ;
and the little girl caused the young officer to start, and
turn deadly pale, by coming up to him with her hands
behind her, and asking, ‘ Why have you not brought
George back too ? ’ Harry did not hear. The sobs and
caresses of his good friend and nurse luckily kept him
from listening to little Fanny.
Dempster was graciously received by the two ladies.
‘ Whatever could be done, we know ycni would do, Mr.
Dempster,’ says Mrs. Moimtain, giving him her hand.
‘ Make a curtsy to Mr. Dempster, Fanny, and remember,
child, to be grateful to aU who have been friendly to our
benefactors. Will it please you to take any refreshment
before you ride. Colonel Washington ? ’
Mr. Washington had had a sufficient ride already, and
counted as certainly upon the hospitality of Castlewood,
as he would upon the shelter of his own house.
‘ The time to feed my horse, and a glass of water for
myself, and I will trouble Castlewood hospitality no
further,’ Mr. Washington said.
‘ Sure, George, you have your room here, and my mother
is above stairs getting it ready I ’ cries Harry. ‘ That
poor horse of yours stumbled with you, and can’t go
farther this evening.’
‘ Hush ! Your mother won’t see him, child,’ whispered
Mrs. Mountain.
‘ Not see George ? Why, he is like a son of the house,’
cries Harry.
‘ She had best not see him. I don’t meddle any more
in family matters, child : but when the colonel’s servant
rode in, and said you were coming. Madam Esmond left
this room, my dear, where she was sitting reading Dre-
lincourt, and said she felt she could not see Mr. Washington.
Will you go to her ? ’ Harry took his friend’s arm, and
excusing Mmself to the colonel, to whom he said he would
132
THE VIRGINIANS
return in a few minutes, he left the parlour in which they
had assembled, and went to the upper rooms, where Madam
Esmond was.
He was hastening across the corridor, and, with an averted
head, passing by one special door, which he did not like to
look at, for it was that of his brother’s room ; but as he
came to it, Madam Esmond issued from it, and folded him
to her heart, and led him in. A settee was by the bed, and
a book of psalms lay on the coverlet. All the rest of the
room was exactly as George had left it.
‘ My poor child ! How thin thou art grown — ^how
haggard you look 1 Never mind. A mother’s care will
make thee well again. ’Twas nobly done to go and brave
sickness and danger in search of your brother. Had others
been as faithful, he might be here now. Never mind,
my Harry ; our hero will come back to us, — know he is
not dead. One so good, and so brave, and so gentle, and
so clever as he was, I know is not lost to us altogether.’
(Perhaps Harry thought within himself that his mother
had not always been accustomed so to speak of her
eldest son.) ‘ Dry up thy tears, my dear ! He will come
back to us, I Imow he will come.’ And when Harry
pressed her to give a reason for her belief, she said she
had seen her father two nights running in a dream, and
he had told her that her boy was a prisoner among the
Indians.
Madam Esmond’s grief had not prostrated her as Harry’s
had when first it fell upon him ; it had rather stirred and
animated her : her eyes were eager, her countenance angry
and revengeful. The lad wondered almost at the condition
in which he found his mother.
But when he besought her to go downstairs, and give
a hand of welcome to George Washington, who had accom-
panied him, the lady’s excitement painfully increased.
She said she should shudder at touching his hand. She
declared Mr. Washington had taken her son from her,
she could not sleep under the same roof with him.
‘ He gave me his bed when I was ill, mother ; and if our
George is alive, how has George Washington a hand in his
death ? Ah ! please God it be only as you say,’ cried
Harry, in bewilderment.
‘ If your brother returns, as return he will, it will not
be through Mr. Washington’s help,’ said Madam Esmond.
PROFITLESS QUEST
13a
‘ He neither defended George on the field, nor would he
bring him out of it.’
‘ But he tended me most kindly in my fever,’ interposed
Harry. ‘ He was yet ill when he gave up his bed to me,
and was thinking of his friend, when any other man would
have thought ordy of himself.’
‘ A friend ! A pretty friend ! ’ sneers the lady. ‘ Of all
his excellency’s aides de camp, my gentleman is the only
one who comes back unwounded. The brave and noble
fall, but he, to he sure, is unhurt. I confide my boy to
him, the pride of my life, whom he will defend with his,
forsooth ! And he leaves my George in the forest, and brings
me back himself i Oh, a pretty welcome I must give him ! ’
‘ No gentleman,’ cried Harry, warmly, ‘ was ever refused
shelter under my grandfather’s roof.’
‘ Oh, no, — ^no gentleman ! ’ exclaims the little widow ;
‘ let us go down, if you like, son, and pay our respects to
this one. Will you please to give me your arm ? ’ and
taking an arm which was very little able to give her support,
she walked down the broad stairs, and into the apartment
where the colonel sat.
She made him a ceremonious curtsy, and extended
one of the little hands, which she allowed for a moment to
rest in his. ‘ I wish that our meeting had been happier,
Colonel Washington,’ she said.
‘ You do not grieve more than I do that it is otherwise,
madam,’ said the colonel.
‘ I might have wished that the meeting had been spared,
that I might not have kept you from friends whom you
are naturally anxious to see — that my boy’s indisposition
had not detained you. Home and his good nurse Mountain,
and his mother and our good Doctor Dempster will soon
restore him. ’Twas scarce necessary, colonel, that you,
who have so many affairs on your hands, military and
domestic, should turn doctor too.’
" Harry was ill and weak, and I thought it was my duty
to ride by him,’ faltered the colonel.
" You yourself, sir, have gone through the fatigues and
dangers of the campaign in the most wonderful manner,’
said the widow, curtsying again, and looking at him
with her impenetrable black eyes.
‘ I wish to Heaven, madam, some one else had come
back in nay place ! ’
X34
THE VIRGINIANS
‘Nay, sir, you have ties which must render your life
more than ever valuable and dear to you, and duties to
which, I know, you must be anxious to betake yourself.
In our present deplorable state of doubt and distress,
Castlewood can be a welcome place to no stranger, much
less to you, and so I know, sir, you will be for leaving us
ere long. And you will pardon me if the state of my own
spirits obliges me for the most part to keep my chamber.
But my friends here will bear you company as long as
you favour us, whilst I nurse my poor Harry upstairs.
Mountain ! you will have the cedar room on the ground
floor ready for Mr. Washington, and anything in the house
is at his command. Farewell, sir. Will you be pleased
to present my compliments to your mother, who will be
thankful to have her son safe and sound out of the war, —
as also to my young friend, Martha Curtis, to whom and
to whose children I wish every happiness. Come, my son 1 ’
and with these words, and another freezing curtsy, the
pale little woman retreated, looking steadily at the colonel,
who stood dumb on the floor.
Strong as Madam Esmond’s belief appeared to be
respecting her son’s safety, the house of Castlewood natur-
ally remained sad and gloomy. She might forbid mourning
for hemelf and family ; but her heart was in black, whatever
face the resolute little lady persisted in wearing before the
world. To look for her son was hoping against hope.
No authentic account of his death had indeed arrived,
and no one appeared who had seen him fall ; but hundreds
more had been so stricken on that fatal day, with no eyes to
behold their last pangs, save those of the lurking enemy
and the comrades dying by their side. A fortnight after
the defeat, when Harry was absent on his quest, George’s
servant, Sady, reappeared wounded and maimed at Castle-
wood. But he could give no coherent account of the
battle, only of his flight from the centre, where he was
with the baggage. He had no news of his master since
the morning of the action. For many days Sady lurked
in the negro quarters away from the sight of Madam
Esmond, whose anger he did not dare to face. That
lady’s few neighbours spoke of her as labouring under
a delusion. So strong was it, that there were times when
Har^ and the other members of the little Castlew^ood
family were almost brought to share in it. It seemed
PROFITLESS QUEST
135
notliing strange to Aer, that her father out of another world
should promise her her son’s life. In this world or the next,
that family sure must be of consequence, she thought.
Nothing had ever yet happened to her sons, no accident,
no fever, no important illness, but she had a prevision of
it. She could enumerate half a dozen instances, which,
indeed, her household was obliged more or less to con&m,
how, when anything had happened to the boys at ever so
great a distance, she had known of their mishap and its
consequences. No, George was not dead ! George was
a prisoner among the Inmans ; George would come back
and rule over Castlewood ; as sure, as sure as his Majesty
would send a great force from home to recover the tarnished
glory of the British arms, and to drive the French out of
the Americas.
As for Mr. Washington, she would never vdth her own
goodwill behold him again. He had promised to protect
George with his life. Why wets her son gone and the
colonel alive ? How dared he to face her after that promise,
and appear before a mother without her son ? She trusted
she knew her duty. She bore ill will to no one : but as
an Esmond, she had a sense of honour, and Mr. Wash-
ington had forfeited his in letting her son out of his sight.
He had to obey superior orders (some one perhaps objected)?
Psha ! a promise was a promise. He had promised to
guard George’s life with his own, and where was her boy ?
And was not the colonel (a pretty colonel, indeed I) sound
and safe ? Do not tell me that his coat and hat had shots
through them ! (This was her answer to another humble
plea in Mr. Washington’s behalf.) Can’t I go into the
study this instant and fire two shots with my papa’s pistols
through this paduasoy skirt, — and should I be killed ?
She laughed at the notion of death resulting from any such
operation ; nor was her laugh very pleasant to hear.
The satire of people who have little natural humour
is seldom good sport for bystanders. I think duU men’s
facetiae are mostly cruel.
So, if Harry wanted to meet his friend, he had to do so
in secret, at court-houses, taverns, or various places of
resort ; or in their little towns, where the provincial
gentry assembled. No man of spirit, she vowed, could
meet Mr. Washington after his base desertion of her family.
She was exceedingly excited when she heard that the
THE VlKUUNjLajNo
Wonel and her son absolutely had met. What a heart
iliust Harry have to give his hand to one whom she con-
sidered as little better than George’s murderer ! For shame
to say so i ‘ For shame upon you, ungrateful boy, forget-
ting the dearest, noblest, most perfect of brothers, for that
tall, gawky, fox-hunting colonel, vith his horrid oaths !
How can he be George’s murderer, when I say my boy
is not dead ? He is not dead, because my instinct never
deceived me : because, as sure as I see his picture now
before me, — only, ’tis not near so noble or so good as
he used to look, — so surely two nights running did my
papa appear to me in my dreams. You doubt about that,
very likely ? ’Tis because you never loved anybody
sufficiently, my poor Harry ; else you might have leave to
see them in dreams, as has been vouchsafed to some.’
‘ I think I loved George, mother,’ cried Harry. ‘ I have
often prayed that I might dream about him, and I don’t.’
‘ How you can talk, sir, of loving George, and then go
and meet your Mr. Washington at horse-races, I can’t
understand ! Can you. Mountain ? ’
‘ We can’t understand many things in our neighbours’
characters. I can understand that our boy is unhappy,
and that he does not get strength, and that he is doing
no good here, in Castlewood, or moping at the taverns
and court-houses with horse-coupers and idle company,’
grumbled Mountain in reply to her patroness : and, in
truth, the dependant was right.
There was not only grief in the Castlewood House, but
there was disunion. ^ I cannot tell how it came,’ said Harry,
as he brought the story to an end, which we have narrated
in the preceding pages, and which he confided to his new-
found English relative, Madame de Bernstein ; ‘ but since
that fatal day of July, last year, and my return home,
my mother never has been the same woman. She seemed
to love none of us as she used. She was for ever praising
George, and yet she did not seem as if she liked him much
when he was with us. She hath plunged, more deeply
than ever, into her books of devotion, out of which she only
manages to extract grief and sadness, as I think. Such
a gloom has fallen over our wretched Virginian .House of
Castlewood, that we all grew ill, and pale as ghosts who
inhabited it. Mountain told me, madam, that, for nights,
my mother would not close her eyes. I have had her at
PROFITLESS QUS^T
137
my bedside, looking so ghastly, that I have started from
my own sleep, fancying a ghost before me. By one means
or other she has wrought herself into a state of excitement
which, if not delirium, is akin to it. I was again and again
struck down by the fever, and all the Jesuits’ bark in
America could not cure me. We have a tobacco-house and
some land about the new town of Richmond, in our province,
and I went thither, as Williamsburg is no wholesomer than
our own place ; and there I mended a little, but still did
not get quite well, and the physicians strongly counselled
a sea-voyage. My mother, at one time, had thoughts of
coming with me, but — ’ (and here the lad blushed and hung
his head down) — ‘ we did not agree very well, though I know
we loved each other very heartily, and ’twas determined
that I should see the world for myself. So I took passage
in our ship from the James River, and was landed at Bristol.
And ’twas only on the 9th of July, this year, at sea, as
had been agreed between me and Madam Esmond, that
I put mourning on for my dear brother.’
So that little mistress of the Virginian Castlewood, for
whom I am sure we have all the greatest respect, had the
knack of rendering the people round about her uncom-
fortable ; quarrelled with those she loved best, and exercised
over them her wayward jealousies and imperious humours,
until they were not sorry to leave her. Here was money
enough, friends enough, a good position, and the respect
of the world ; a house stored with all manner of plenty,
and good things, and poor Harry Warrington was glad
to leave them all behind him. Happy ! Who is happy?
What good in a stalled ox for dinner every day, and no
content therewith ? Is it best to be loved and plagued by
those you love, or to have an easy, comfortable indifference
at home : to follow your fancies, live there unmolested,
and die without causing any painful regrets or tears ?
To be sure, when her boy was gone. Madam Esmond
forgot all these little tiffs and differences. To hear her
speak of both her children, you would fancy they were
perfect characters, and had never caused her a moment’s
worry or annoyance. These gone, madam fell naturally
upon Mrs. Mountain and her httle daughter, and worried
and annoyed them. But women bear with hard words
more easily than men, are more ready to forgive injuries,
F 3
138
THE VIRGINIANS
or, perhaps, to dissemble anger. Let us trust that Madam
Esmond’s dependants found their life tolerable, that they
gave her ladyship sometimes as good as they got, that if
they quarrelled in the morning they were reconciled at
night, and sat down to a tolerably friendly game at cards
and an amicable dish of tea.
But, without the boys, the great house of Castlewood
was dreary to the widow. She left an overseer there to
manage her estates, and only paid the place an occasional
visit. She enlarged and beautified her house in the pretty
little city of Richmond, which began to grow daily in
importance. She had company there, and card assemblies,
and preachers in plenty ; and set up her little throne
there, to which the gentlefolk of the province were welcome
to come and bow. All her domestic negroes, who loved
society as negroes will do, were delighted to exchange
the solitude of Castlewood for the gay and merry little
town ; where, for a time, and while we pursue Harry
Warrington’s progress in Europe, we leave the good lady.
CHAPTER XIV
HABBY mr ENGLAND
3N the famous Trojan
wanderer narrated his
escapes and adventures
to Queen Dido, her
Majesty, as we read,
took the very greatest
interest in the fasci-
nating story-teller who
told his perils so elo-
quently. A history
ensued, more pathetic
than any of the pre-
vious occurrences in
the life of Pius Aeneas,
and the poor princess
had reason to rue the
day when she listened
to that glib and dangerous orator. Harry Warrington
HARRY IN ENGLAND
139
had not pious Aeneas’s power of speech, and his elderly
aunt, we may presume, was by no means so soft-hearted
as the sentimental Dido ; but yet the lad’s narrative was
touching, as he delivered it with his artless eloquence and
cordial voice ; and more than once, in the course of his
story, Madame Bernstein found herself moved to a softness
to wMch she had very seldom before allowed herself to
give way. There were not many fountains in that desert
of a life — ^not many sweet, refreshing resting-places. It
had been a long loneliness, for the most part, until this
friendly voice came and sounded in her ears and caused
her heart to beat with strange pangs of love and sympathy.
She doted on this lad, and on this sense of compassion and
regard so new to her. Save once, faintly, in very, very
early youth, she had felt no tender sentiment for any human
being. Such a woman would, no doubt, watch her own
sensations very keenly, and must have smiled after the
appearance of this boy, to mark how her pulses rose above
their ordinary beat. She longed after him. She felt her
cheeks flush with happiness when he came near. Her
eyes greeted him with welcome, and followed him with
fond pleasure. ‘ Ah, if she could have had a son like that,
how she would have loved him ! ’ ‘ Wait,’ says Conscience,
the dark scoffer mocking within her, ‘ wait, Beatrix Esmond!
You know you wiU weary of this inclination, as you have of
all. You know, when the passing fancy has subsided, that
the boy may perish, and you won’t have a tear for him ; or
talk, and you weary of his stories ; and that your lot in
life is to be lonely — ^lonely.’ WeU ? suppose life he a desert ?
There are halting-places, and shades, and refreshing waters :
let us proflt by them for to-day. We know that we must
march when to-morrow comes, and tramp on our destiny
onward.
She smiled inwardly, whilst following the lad’s narrative,
to recognize in his simple tales about his mother, traits of
family resemblance. Madam Esmond was very jealous ? —
Yes, that Harry owned. She was fond of Colonel Wash-
ington ? She liked him, but only as a friend, Harry
declared. A hundred times he had heard his mother
vow that she had no other feeling towards him. He was
ashamed to have to own that he himseff had been once
absurdly jealous of the colonel. ‘ WeU, you will see that
my half-sister wiU never forgive him,’ said Madam Beatrix.
140
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ And you need not be surprised, sir, at women taking a fancy
to men younger than themselves ; for don’t I dote upon
you ; and don’t all these Castlewood people crmemJL with
jealousy ? ’
However great might be their jealousy of Madame de
Bernstein’s new favourite, the family of Castlewood allowed
no feeling of ill will to appear in their language or behaviour
to their young guest and kinsman. Aiter a couple of days’
stay in the ancestral house, Mr. Harry Warrington had
become Cousin Harry with young and middle-aged.
Especially in Madame Bernstein’s presence, the Countess
of Castlewood was most gracious to her kinsman, and she
took many amiable private opportunities of informing
the baroness how charming the young Huron was, of
vaunting the elegance of Ms manners and appearance,
and wondering how, in Ms distant province, the child should
ever have learned to be so polite ?
These notes of admiration or interrogation, the baroness
took with equal complacency. (Speaking parenthetically,
and for Ms own part, the present chronicler cannot help
putting in a little respectful remark here, and signifying
his admiration of the conduct of ladies towards one another,
and of the things which they say, which they forbear to
say, and wMch they say behind each other’s backs. With
what smiles and curtsies they stab each other ! with what
compliments they hate each other! with what determination
of long-suffering they won’t be offended! with what
innocent dexterity they can drop the drop poison into
the cup of conversation, hand round the goblet, smiling,
to the whole family to drink, and make the dear domestic
circle miserable !) I burst out of my parenthesis. I fancy
my baroness and countess smiling at each other a hundred
years ago, and giving each other the hand or the cheek,
and calling each other, my dear, my dear creature, my
dear countess, my dear baroness, my dear sister, — even,
when they were most ready to fight.
* You wonder, my dear Maria, that the boy should be
so polite ? ’ cries Madame de Bernstein. ‘ His mother
was bred up by two very perfect gentlefolks. Colonel
Esmond had a certain grave courteousness, and a grand
manner, which I do not see among the gentlemen now-
adays.’
‘ Eh, my dear, we all of us praise our own time I My
HARRY IN ENGLAND
141
grandmamma used to declare there was nothing like
Whitehall and Charles the Second.’
* My mother saw King James the Second’s Court for a
short while, and though not a court-educated person, as you
know — ^her father was a country clergyman — ^yet was
exquisitely well bred. The colonel, her second husband,
was a person of great travel and experience, as well as of
learning, and had frequented the finest company of Europe.
They could not go into their retreat and leave their good
manners behind them, and our boy has had them as his
natural inheritance.’
‘ Nay, excuse me, my dear, for thinking you too partial
about your mother. She covM not have been that per-
fection which your filial fondness imagines. She left off
liking her daughter — ^my dear creature, you have owned
that she did — and I cannot fancy a complete woman who
has a cold heart. No, no, my dear sister-in-law ! Manners
are very requisite, no doubt, and, for a country parson’s
daughter, your mamma was very well — have seen many
of the cloth who are very well. Mr, Sampson, our chaplain,
is very well. Dr. Young is very well. Mr. Dodd is very
well ; but they have not the true air — as how should they?
I protest, I beg pardon ! I forgot my lord bishop, your
ladyship’s first choice. But, as I said before, to be a com-
plete woman, one must have, what you have, what I may
say and bless Heaven for, I think I have — a good heart.
Without the afiections, all the world is vanity, my love !
I protest I only live, exist, eat, drink, rest, for my sweet,
sweet children ! for my wicked Willy, for my self-willed
Fanny, dear naughty loves ! ’ (She rapturously kisses
a bracelet on each arm which contains the miniature
representations of those two young persons.) ‘ Yes, Mimi \
yes, Fanchon ! you know I do, you dear, dear little things !
and if they were to die, or you were to die, your poor
mistress would die, too ! ’ Mimi and Fanchon, two quiver-
ing Italian greyhounds, jump into their lady’s arms, and
kiss her hands, but respect her cheeks, which are covered
with rouge. ‘ No, my dear I For nothing do I bless Heaven
so much (though it puts me to excruciating torture very
often) as for having endowed me with sensibility and a
feeling heart ! ’
‘ You are full of feeling, dear Anna,’ says the baroness.
' You are celebrated for your sensibility. You must
142
THE VIEGINIANS
give a little of it to our American nephew — cousin — 1
scarce know his relationship.’
* Nay, I am here but as a guest in Castlewood now.
The house is my Lord Castlewood’s, not mine, or his
lordship’s whenever he shall choose to claim it. What
can I do for the young Virginian that has not been done ?
He is charming. Are we even jealous of him for being
so, my dear ? and though we see what a fancy the Baroness
de Bernstein has taken for him, do your ladyship’s nephews
and nieces — ^your rml nephews and nieces — cry out ?
My poor children might be mortified, for indeed, in a few
hours, the charming young man has made as much way
as my poor things have been able to do in all their lives :
but are they angry ? Willy hath taken him out to ride.
This morning, was not Maria playing the harpsichord whilst
my Fanny taught him the minuet ? ’Twas a charming
young group, I assure you, and it brought tears into my
eyes to look at the young creatures. Poor lad ! we are
as fond of him as you are, dear baroness ! ’
Now, Madame de Bernstein had happened, through her
own ears or her maid’s, to overhear what really took place
in consequence of this harmless little scene. Lady
Castlewood had come into the room where the young people
were thus engaged in amusing and instructing themselves,
accompanied by her son William, who arrived in his boots
from the kennel.
‘ Bravi, hravi / Oh, charming I ’ said the countess,
clapping her hands, nodding with one of her best smiles to
Harry Warrington, and darting a look at his partner, which
my Lady Fanny perfectly understood : and so, perhaps,
did my Lady Maria at her harpsichord, for she played
with redoubled energy, and nodded her’ waving curls over
the chords.
‘ Infernal young Choctaw ! Is he teaching Faimy the
war-dance ? and is Fan going to try her tricks upon him
now ? ’ asked Mr. WiUiam, whose temper was not of the
best.
And that was what Lady Castlewood’s look said to Fanny.
‘ Are you going to try your tricks upon him now ? ’
She made Barry a very low curtsy, and he blushed,
and they both stopped dancing, somewhat disconcerted.
Lady Maria rose from the harpsichord and walked away.
‘ Nay, go on dancing, young people ! Don’t let me
HARRY IN ENGLAND
145
spoil sport, and let me play for you,’ said the countess ;
and she sat down to the instrument and played.
‘ I don’t know' how to dance,’ says Harry, hanging his
head down, with a blush that the countess’s finest carmine
could not equal.
‘ And Fanny was teaching you ? Go on teaching him,
dearest Fanny ! ’
‘ Go on, do ! ’ says William, with a sidelong growl.
‘ I — had rather not show off my awkwardness in
company,’ adds Harry, recovering himself. ‘ When I know-
how to dance a minuet, be sure I will ask my cousin to walk
one with me.’
‘ That will be very soon, dear Cousin Warrington, I am
certain,’ remarks the countess, with her most gracious
air.
‘ What game is she hunting now ? ’ thinks Mr. William
to himself, who cannot penetrate his mother’s ways ; and
that lady, fondly calling her daughter to her elbow, leaves
the room.
They are no sooner in the tapestried passage leading
away to their own apartment, but Lady Castlewood’s
bland tone entirely changes. ‘ You booby ! ’ she begins
to her adored Fanny. ‘ You double idiot ! what are you
going to do with the Huron? You don’t want to marry
a creature like that, and be a squaw in a wigwam?’
‘ Don’t, mamma,’ gasped Lady Fanny. Mamma was
pinching her ladyship’s arm black and blue. ‘ I am sure
our cousin is very well,’ Fanny whimpers, ‘ and you said
so yourself.’
‘ Very well ! Yes ; and heir to a swamp, a negro, a log-
cabin, and a barrel of tobacco ! My Lady Frances Esmond,
do you remember what your ladyship’s rank is, and what
your name is, and who was your ladyship’s mother, when,
at three days’ acquaintance, you commence dancing — a
pretty dance, indeed, — ^with this brat out of Virginia ? ’
‘ Mr. Warrington i^ our cousin,’ pleads Lady Fanny.
' A creature come from nobody knows where is not
your cousin ! How do we know he is your cousin ? He
may be a valet who has taken his master’s portmanteau
and run away in his post-chaise.’
' But Madame de Bernstein says he is our cousin,’ inter-
poses Fanny ; ‘ and he is the image of the Esmonds.’
‘ Madame de Bernstein has her likes and dislikes, takes
146
THE VIBGINIANS
up people and foi^ets people ; and she chooses to profess
a mighty fancy for tins young man. Because she likes
him to-day, is that any reason why she should like him to-
morrow ? Before company, and in your aunt’s presence, your
ladyship will please to be as civil to him as necessa^ ; but,
in private, I forbid you to see him or encourage him.’
‘ I don’t care, madam, whether your ladyship forbids
me or not ! ’ cries out Lady Fanny, wrought up to a pitch
of revolt.
‘ Very good, Fanny ! then I speak to my lord, and we
return to Kensington. If I can’t bring you to reason,
your brother will.’
At this juncture the conversation between mother and
daughter stopped, or Madame de Bernstein’s informer had
no further means of hearing or reporting it.
It was only in after-days that she told Harry Warrington
a part of what she knew. At present he but saw that his
kinsfolks received him not unkindly. Lady Castlewood
was perfectly civil to him ; the young ladies pleasant and
pleased ; my Lord Castlewood, a man of cold and haughty
demeanour, was not more reserved towards Harry than to
any of the rest of the family ; Mr. William was ready to
HARRY m ENGLAND
147
drink with him, to ride with him, to go to rax3es with him,
and to play cards with him. When he proposed to go
away, they one and all pressed him to stay. Madame de
Bernstein did not tell him how it arose that he was the
object of such eager hospitality. He did not know what
schemes he was serving or disarranging, whose or what
anger he was creating. He fancied he was welcome because
those around him were his kinsmen, and never thought
that those could be his enemies out of whose cup he was
drinking, and whose hand he was pressing every night and
morning.
CHAPTER XV
A sirerDAY at castlewood
HE second day after Harry’s
arrival at Castlewood was
a Sunday. The chapel
appertaining to the castle
was the village church. A
door from the house com-
municated with a great
state pew which the family
occupied, and here after
due time they all took
their places in order, whilst
a rather numerous congre-
S n from the village
the seats below. A
few ancient dusty banners
hung from the church
roof ; and Harry pleased himself in imagining that they
had been borne by retainers of his family in the Common-
wealth wars, in which, as he knew well, his ancestors had
taken a loyal and distinguished part. Within the altar-
rails was the effigy of the Esmond of the time of King
James the First, the common forefather of all the group
assembled in the family pew. Madame de Bernstein, in
her quality of bishop’s widow, never failed in attendance,
and conducted her devotions with a gravity almost as
exemplary as that of the ancestor yonder, in his square
148
THE VIRGINIANS
beard and red gown, for ever kneeling on his stone hassock
before Ms great marble desk and book, under his emblazoned
sMeld of arms. The clergyman, a tall, Mgh-coloured, hand-
some young man, read the service in a lively, agreeable
voice, giving almost a dramatic point to the chapters of
Scripture which he read. The music was good — one of the
young ladies of the family touching the organ — and would
have been better but for an interruption and sometMng
like a burst of laughter from the servants’ pew, which was
occasioned by Mr. Warrington’s lackey Gumbo, who,
knowing the air given out for the psalm, began to sing
it in a voice so exceedingly loud and sweet, that the whole
congregation turned towards the African warbler ; the
parson himself put Ms handkerchief to Ms mouth, and the
liveried gentlemen from London were astonished out of all
propriety. Pleased perhaps with the sensation which he
created, Mr. Gumbo continued Ms performance until it
became almost a solo, and the voice of the clerk himself
was silenced. For the truth is, that though Gumbo held
on to the book, along with pretty Molly, the porter’s
daughter, who had been the first to welcome the strangers
to Castlewood, he sang and recited by ear and not by
note, and could not read a syllable of the verses in the
book before him.
TMs choral performance over, a brief sermon in due
course followed, which, indeed, Harry thought a deal too
short. In a lively, familiar, striking discourse the clergy-
man described a scene of wMch he had been witness the
previous week — ^the execution of a horse-stealer after
Assizes. He described the man and Ms previous good
character, Ms family, the love they bore one another, and
Ms agony at parting from them. He depicted the execu-
tion in a manner startling, terrible, and picturesque. He
did not introduce into Ms sermon the Scripture phraseology,
such as Harry had been accustomed to hear it from those
somewhat Calvinistic preachers whom his mother loved to
frequent, but rather spoke as one man of the world to other
sinful people, who might be likely to profit by good advice.
The unhappy man just gone, had begun as a farmer of
good prospects ; he had taken to drinking, card-playing,
horse-racing, cock-fighting, the vices of the age ; against
which the young clergyman was generously indignant.
Then he had got to poaching, and to horse-stealing, for
A SUNDAY AT CASTLEWOOD 14&
wliich he suffered. The divine rapidly drew striking and
fearful pictures of these rustic crimes. He startl^ his
hearers by showing that the Eye of the Law was watching
the poacher at midnight, and setting traps to catch the
criminal. He galloped the stolen horse over highway and
common, and from one county into another, but showed
Retribution ever galloping after, seizing the malefactor in
the country fair, carrying him before the justice, and never
unlocking his manacles till he dropped them at the gallows’
foot. Heaven be pitiful to the sinner ! The clergyman
acted the scene. He whispered in the criminal’s ear at
the cart. He dropped his handkerchief on the clerk’s head.
Harry started back as that handkerchief dropped. The
clergyman had been talking for more than twenty minutes.
Harry could have heard him for an hour more, and thought
he had not been five minutes in the pulpit. The gentle-
folks in the great pew were very much enlivened by the
discourse. Once or twice Harry, who could see the pew
where the house servants sat, remarked these very atten-
tive ; and especially Gumbo, his own man, in an attitude
of intense consternation. But the smock-frocks did not
seem to heed, and clamped out of church quite uncon-
cerned. Gaffer Brown and Gammer Jones took the matter
as it came, and the rosy-cheeked, red-cloaked village lasses
sat under their broad hats entirely unmoved. My lord,
from his pew, nodded slightly to the clergyman in the
pulpit, when that divine’s he^ and wig surged up from
the cushion.
‘ Sampson has been strong to-day,’ said his lordship.
* He has assaulted the Philistines in great force.’
‘ Beautiful, beautiful ! ’ says Harry.
‘ Bet five to four it was his Assize sermon. He has been
over to Winton to preach, and to see those dogs,’ cries
William.
The organist had played the little congregation out into
the sunshine. Only Sir Francis Esmond, temp. Jac. I,
still knelt on his marble hassock, before his Prayer-book of
stone. Mr. Sampson came out of his vestry in his cas-
sock, and nodded to the gentlemen still lingering in the
great pew.
‘ Come up, and tell us about those dogs,’ says Mr. William,
and the divine nodded a laughing assent.
The gentlemen passed out of tlie church into the gallery
150
THE VIRGINIANS
of their house, which connected them with that sacred
building. Mr. Sampson made his way through the court,
and presently joined them. He was presented by my lord
to the Virginian cousin of the family, Mr. Warrington ;
the chaplain bowed very profoundly, and hoped Mr. War-
rington would benefit by the virtuous example of his
European kinsmen. Was he related to Sir Miles Warring-
ton of Norfolk ? Sir Miles was Mr. Warrington’s father’s
elder brother. What a pity he had a son ! ’Twas a pretty
estate, and Mr. Warrin^on looked as if he would become
a baronetcy, and a fine estate in Norfolk.
‘ Tell me about my uncle,’ cried Virginian Harry,
‘ TeU us about those dogs ! ’ said English Will, in a breath.
‘ Two more joUy dogs, two more drunken dogs, saving
your presence, Mr. Warrington, than Sir Miles and his son,
I never saw. Sir Miles was a stanch friend and neigh-
bour of Sir Robert’s. He can drink down any man in
the county, except his son and a few more. The other
dogs about which Mr. William is anxious, for Heaven hath
m^e him a prej to dogs and all kinds of birds, like the
Greeks in the lUad •
* I know that line in the Iliad,^ says Harry, blushing.
‘ I only know five more, but I know that one.’ And his
head fell. He was thinking. ‘ Ah, my dear brother George
knew aU the Iliad and all the Odyssey, and almost every
book that was ever written besides ! ’
‘ What on earth ’ (only he mentioned a place under the
earth) ‘ are you talMng about now ? ’ asked Will of his
reverence.
The chaplain reverted to the dogs and their performance.
He thought Mr. William’s dogs were more than a match
for them. From dogs they went off to horses. Mr. William
was very eager about the Six-year-old Plate at Huntingdon.
‘ Have you brought any news of it, parson ? ’
‘ The odds are five to four on Brilliant against the field,’
says the parson, gravely ; ‘ but, mind you, Jason is a good
horse.’
‘ WTiose horse ? ’ asks my lord.
‘ Duke of Ancaster’s. By Cartouche out of Miss Lang-
ley,’ says the divine. ‘ Have you horse-races in Virginia,
Mr. Warrington ? ’
^ Haven’t we ! ’ cries Harry ; ‘ but oh ! I long to see
a good English race ! ’
A SUNDAY AT CASTLEWOOD
151
* Do you — do you — bet a little ? ’ continues his reverence.
‘ I have done such a thing,’ replies Harry with a smile.
‘ I’ll take Brilliant even against the field, for ponies with
you, cousin ! ’ shouts out Mr. William.
‘ I’ll give or take three to one against Jason I ’ says the
clergyman.
‘I don’t bet on horses I don’t know,’ said Harry,
wondering to hear the chaplain now, and remembering
his sermon half an hour before.
" Hadn’t you better write home, and ask your mother ? ’
says Mr. William, with a sneer.
‘ Will, Will 1 ’ calls out my lord, ‘ our cousin Warrington
is free to bet, or not, as he likes. Have a care how you
venture on either of them, Harry Warrington. Will is an
old file, in spite of his smooth face, and as for Parson
Sampson, I defy our ghostly enemy to get the better of
him.’
‘ Him and aU his works, my lord ! ’ said Mr. Sampson,
with a bow.
Harry was highly indignant at this allusion to his mother.
* I’ll tell you what, cousin Will,’ he said, ‘ I am in the habit
of managing my own affairs in my own way, without
asking any lady to arrange them for me. And I’m used
to make my own bets upon my own judgement, and don’t
need any relations to select them for me, thank you. But
as I am your guest, and, no dt>ubt, you want to show me
hospitality. I’ll take your bet — ^there. And so Done and
Done.’
‘ Done,’ says WiU, looking askance.
‘ Of course it is the regular odds that’s in the paper
which you give me, cousin ? ’
‘ Well, no, it isnH,^ growled Will. ‘ The odds are five to
four, that’s the fact, and you may have ’em, if you like.’
‘ Nay, cousin, a bet is a bet ; and I take you, too,
Mr. Sampson.’
‘ Three to one against Jason. I lay it. Very good,’
says Mr. Sampson.
" Is it to be ponies, too, Mr. Chaplain ? ’ asks Harry
with a superb air, as if he had Lombard Street in his
pocket.
^ No, no. Thirty to ten. It is enough for a poor priest
to win.’
‘ Here goes a great slice out of my quarter’s hundred,’
152
THE VIRGINIANS
thinks Harry. ‘ Well, I shan’t let these Englishmen fancy
that I am afraid of them. I didn’t begin, but for the
honour of Old Virginia I won’t go back.’
These pecuniary transactions arranged, William Esmond
went away scowhng towards the stables, where he loved
to take his pipe with the grooms ; the brisk parson went
off to pay his court to the ladies, and partake of the Sunday
dinner which would presently be served. Lord Castlewood
and Harry remained for a while together. Since the Vir-
ginian’s arrival my lord had scarcely spoken with him. In
his manners he was perfectly friendly, but so silent that
he would often sit at the head of his table, and leave it
without uttering a word.
‘ I suppose yonder property of yours is a fine one by this
time ? ’ said my lord to Harry.
‘I reckon it’s almost as big as an English county,’
answered Harry, * and the land’s as good, too, for many
things.’ Harry would not have the Old Dominion, nor
his share in it, underrated.
‘ Indeed ! ’ said my lord, with a look of surprise. ‘ When
it belonged to my father it did not yield much.’
‘ Pardon me, my lord. You know hom it belonged to
your father,’ cried the youth with some spirit. ‘ It was
because my grandfather ^d not choose to claim his right.’ *
* Of course, of course,’ says my lord, hastily.
‘ I mean, cousin, that we of the Virginian house owe
you nothing but our own,’ continued Harry Warrington ;
‘ but our own, and the hc^pitality which you are now
showing me.’
‘ You are heartily welcome to both. You were hurt by
the betting just now ? ’
" WeU,’ replied the lad, " I am sort o’ hurt. Your wel-
come, you see, is different to our welcome, and that’s the
fact. At home we are glad to see a man, hold out a hand
to him, and give him of our best. Here you take us in,
give us beef and claret enough, to be sure, and don’t seem
to care when we come, or when we go. That’s the remark
which I have been making, since I have been in your
lordship’s house ; I can’t help telling it out, you see, now
’tis on my mind ; and I think I am a little easier now
I have said it.’ And with this, the excited young fellow
* This matter is discussed in the author’s previous work, The
Memoirs of Cclond Esmond,
A SUNDAY AT CASTLEWOOD
153
knocked a billiard-ball across the table, and then laughed,
and looked at his elder kinsman.
‘ A la bonne heure / We are cold to the stranger within
and without our gates. We don’t take Mr. Harry Warring-
ton into our arms, and cry when we see our cousin. We
don’t cry when he goes away — but do we pretend ? ’
‘ No, you don’t. But you try to get the better of him
in a bet,’ says Harry, indignantly.
‘ Is there no such practice in Virginia, and don’t sporting
men there try to overreach one another ? What was that
story I heard you telling our aunt, of the British officers
and Tom Somebody of Spotsylvania ? ’
‘ That’s fair ! ’ cries Harry. ‘ That is, it’s usual practice,
and a stranger must look out. I don’t mind the parson ;
if he wins, he may have and welcome. But a relation !
To think that my own blood cousin wants money out
of me ! ’
‘ A Newmarket man would get the better of his father.
My brother has been on the turf, since he rode 'over to
it from Cambridge. If you play at cards with him — and
he will if you will let him — ^he will beat you if he can.’
‘ Well, I’m ready ! ’ cries Harry. ‘ I’ll play any game
with him that I know, or I’ll jump with him, or I’ll ride
with him, or I’ll row with him, or I’ll wrestle with him,
or I’ll shoot with him — there now I ’
The senior was greatly entertained, and held out his
hand to the boy. ‘ Anything, but don’t fight with him,’
said my lord.
‘ If I do, I’ll whip him ! hanged if I don’t ! ’ cried the
lad. But a look of surprise and displeasure on the noble-
man’s part recalled him to better sentiments. ‘ A hundred
pardons, my lord ! ’ he said, blushing very red, and seizing
his cousin’s hand. ‘ I talked of ill manners, being angry
and hurt just now ; but ’tis doubly ill-mannered of me
to show my anger, and boast about my prowess to my
own host and kinsman. It’s not the practice with us
Americans to boast, believe me, it’s not.’
‘ You are the first I ever met,’ says my lord with a smile,
‘ and I take you at your word. And I give you fair
warning about the cards, and the betting, that is all,
my boy.’
‘ Leave a Virginian alone ! We are a njiatch for most
men, we are,’ resumed the boy.
154
THE VIRGINIANS
Lord Castlewood did not laugh. His eyebrows only
arched for a moment, and his grey eyes turned towards
the ground. * So you can bet fifty guineas, and afford to
lose them ? So much the better for you, cousin. Those
great Virginian estates yield a great revenue, do they ? ’
‘More than sufficient for aU of us — ^for ten times as
many as we are now,’ replied Harry. (‘ What, Ae is pumping
me I ’ thought the lad.)
‘ And your mother makes her son and heir a handsome
allowance ? ’
‘ As much as ever I choose to draw, my lord ! ’ cried
Harry.
‘ Peste ! I wish I had such a mother ! ’ cried my lord.
‘ But I have only the advantage of a stepmother, and she
draws on me. There is the dinner-beU. Shall we go into
the eating-room ? ’ and taking his young friend’s arm,
my lord led him to the apartment where that meal was
waiting.
Parson Sampson formed the delight of the entertainment,
and amused the ladies with a hundred agreeable stories.
Besides being chaplain to his lordship, he was a preacher
in London, at the new chapel in May Fair, for which my
Lady VHiittlesea (so well known in the reign of George I)
had left an endowment. He had the choicest stories of
all the clubs and coteries — ^the very latest news of who
had run away with whom — ^the last bon mot of Mr. Selwyn
— ^the last wM bet of March and Rockingham. He knew
how the old king had quarrelled with Madame Walmoden,
and the duke was suspected of having a new love — ^who
was in favour at Carlton House with the Princess of Wales —
and who was hung last Monday, and how well he behaved
in the cart. My lord’s chaplain poured out all this intelli-
gence to the amused ladies and the delighted yoimg pro-
vincial, seasoning his conversation with such plain terms
and lively jokes as made Harry stare, who was newly
arrived from the colonies, and unused to the elegances of
London life. The ladies, old and young, laughed quite
cheerfully at the lively jokes. Do not be frightened, ye fair
readers of the present day ! We are not going to outrage
your sweet modesties, or call blushes on your maiden
cheeks. But ’tis certain that their ladyships at Castlewood
never once thought of being shocked, but sat listening to
the parson’s funny tales, until the chapel bell, clinking for
A SUNDAY AT CASTLEWOOD
155
afternoon service, summoned his reverence away for half
an hour. There was no sermon. He would be back in
the drinking of a bottle of burgundy. Mr. Will called
a fresh one, and the chaplain tossed off a glass ere he
ran out.
Ere the half-hour was over, Mr. Chaplain w’as back again
bawiing for another bottle. This discussed, they joined
the ladles, and a couple of card-tables were set out, as,
indeed, they were for many hours every day, at which the
whole of the family party engaged. Madame de Bernstein
could beat any one of her kinsfolk at piquet, and there
was only Mr. Chaplain in the whole circle who was at all
a match for her ladyship.
In this easy manner the Sabbath day passed, ^e
evening was beautiful, and there w’^as talk of adjourning
to a cool tankard and a game of whist in a summer-house ;
but the company voted to sit indoors, the ladies declaring
they thought the aspect of three honours in their hand,
and some good court cards, more beautiful than the loveliest
scene of nature ; and so the sun went behind the elms,
156
THE VIRGINIANS
and still they were at their cards ; and the rooks came
home cawing their even song, and they never stirred except
to change partners ; and the chapel clock tolled hour after
hour uuheeded, so delightfully were they spent over the
pasteboard ; and the moon and stars came out ; and it
was nine o’clock, and the groom of the chambers announced
that supper was ready.
VPhilst they sat at that meal, the postboy’s twanging
horn was heard, as he trotted into the village with his
letter-bag. My lord’s bag was brought in presently from
the village, and his letters, w^hich he put aside, and his news-
paper, which he read. He smiled as he came to a para-
graph, looked at his Virginian cousin, and handed the
paper over to his brother Will, who by this time was very
comfortable, having had pretty good luck all the evening,
and a great deal of liquor.
‘ Read that, Will,’ says my lord.
Mr. William took the paper, and, reading the sentence
pointed out by his brother, uttered an exclamation which
caused all the ladies to cry out.
‘ Gracious Heavens, William ! What has happened ? ’
cries one or the other fond sister.
‘ Mercy, child, why do you swear so dreadfully ? ’ asked
the young man’s fond mamma.
‘ What’s the matter ? ’ inquires Madame de Bernstein,
who was fallen into a doze after her usual modicum of
punch and beer.
‘ Read it, parson,’ says Mr. William, thrusting the paper
over to the chaplain, and looking as fierce as a Turk.
* Bit, by the Lord I ’ roars the chaplain, dashing down
the paper.
‘ Cousin Harry, you are in luck,’ said my lord, taking
up the sheet, and reading from it. ‘ The Six-year-old
Plate at Huntingdon was won by Jason, beating Brilliant,
Pytho, and Ginger. The odds were five to four on Brilliant
against the field, three to one against Jason, seven to two
against Pytho, and twenty to one against Ginger.’
‘I owe you a half-year’s income of my poor living,
Mr. Warrington,’ groaned the parson. * I will pay when
my noble patron settles with me.’
‘ A curse upon the luck ! ’ growls Mr. William ; ‘ that
comes of betting on a Sunday,’ — ^and he sought consolation
in another great bumper.
A SUNDAY AT CASTLEWOOD
157
‘Nay, cousin Will. It was but in jest,’ cried Harry.
‘ I can’t think of taking my cousin’s money.’
‘ Curse me, sir, do you suppose, if I lose, I can’t pay ? ’
asks Mr. William ; ‘ and that I want to be beholden to
any man alive ? That is a good joke. Isn’t it, parson ? ’
‘ I think I have heard better,’ said the clergyman ; to
which William replied, ‘ Hang it, let us have another bowl.’
Let us hope the ladies did not w^ait for this last replenish-
ment of liquor, for it is certain they had had plenty already
during the evening.
CHAPTER XVI
nr WHICH GUMBO SHOWS SKILL WITH THE OLE ENGLISH WEAPON
B young Virginian having won these
sums of money from his cousin and
the chaplain, was in duty bound to
give them a chance of recovering
their money, and I am afraid his
mamma and other sound moralists
would scarcely approve of his way
of life. He played at cards a great
deal too much. Besides the daily
whist or quadrille with the ladies,
which set in soon after dinner at
three o’clock, and lasted until supper
time, there occurred games involving
the gain or loss of very considerable
sums of money, in which all the
gentlemen, my lord included, took part. Since their Sun-
day’s conversation, his lordship was more free and con-
fidential with his kinsman than he had previously been,
betted with him quite affably, and engaged him at back-
gammon and piquet. Mr. William and the pious chaplain
liked a little hazard ; though his diversion was enjoyed
on the sly, and unknown to the ladies of the house, who
had exacted repeated promises from cousin Will, that he
would not lead the Virginian into mischief, and that he
would himself keep out of it. So Will promised as much
as his aunt or his mother chose to demand from him, gave
158
THE VIRGINIANS
them his word that he would never play, no, never ; and
when the family retired to rest, Mr, Will would walk over
with a dice-box and a rum-bottle to cousin Harry’s
quarters, where he, and Hal, and his reverence would sit
and play until daylight.
When Harry gave to Lord Castlewood those flourishing
descriptions of the maternal estate in America, he had not
wished to mislead his kinsman, or to boast, or to tell
falsehoods, for the lad was of a very honest and truth-
telling nature ; but, in his life at home, it must be owned
that the young fellow had had acquaintance with all sorts
'of queer company, — ^horse-jockeys, tavern loungers, gam-
bling and sporting men, of whom a great number were
found in his native colony. A landed aristocracy, with
a population of negroes to work their fields, and cultivate
their tobacco and com, had little other way of amusement
than in the hunting-field, or over the cards and the punch-
bowl. The hospit^ty of the province was unbounded :
every man’s house was his neighbour’s ; and the idle
gentlefolks rode from one mansion to another, finding in
each pretty much the same sport — ^welcome, and rough
plenty. The Virginian squire had often a bare-footed
valet, and a cobbled saddle ; but there was plenty of corn
for the horses, and abundance of drink and venison for
the master within the tumbledown fences, and behind the
cracked windows of the haU. Harry had slept on many
a straw mattress, and engaged in endless jolly night-bouts
over claret and punch in cracked bowls tifl morning came,
and it was time to follow the hounds. His poor brother
was of a much more sober sort, as the lad owned with
contrition. So it is that Nature makes folks ; and some
love books and tea, and some like burgundy and a gallop
across country. Our young fellow’s tastes were speedily
made visible to his friends in England. None of them
were partial to the Puritan disciplme ; nor did they like
Harry the worse for not being the least of a milksop.
Manners, you see, were looser a hundred years ago ; tongues
were vastly more free and easy ; names were named, and
things were done, which we should screech now to hear
mentioned. Yes, madam, we are not as our ancestors were.
Ought we not to thank the Pates that have improved
our morals so prodigiously, and made us so eminently
virtuous 2
GUMBO AND THE OLD ENGLISH WEAPON 159
So, keeping a slarewd, keen eye upon people round about
him, and fancying, not incorrectly, that his cousins were
disposed to pump him, Harry Warrington had thought fit
to keep his own counsel regarding his own affairs, and in
all games of chance or matters of sport was quite a match
for the three gentlemen into whose company he had fallen.
Even in the noble game of bOliards he could hold his own
after a few days’ play with his cousins and their revered
pastor. His grandfather loved the game, and had over
from Europe one of the very few taMes which existed in
his Majesty’s province of Virginia. Nor though Mr. Will
could beat him at the commencement, could he get undue
odds out of the young gamester. .Mter their first bet,
Harry was on his guard with Mr. Will, and cousin William
owned, not without respect, that the American was his
match in most things, and his better in many. But though
Harry played so well that he could beat the parson, and
soon was the equal of Will, who of course could beat both
the girls, how came it, that in the contests with these,
especially with one of them, Mr. Warrington frequently
came off second ? He was profoundly courteous to every
being who wore a petticoat : nor has that traditional
politeness yet left Ms country. AU the women of the
Castlewood establishment loved the young gentleman. The
grim housekeeper was mollified by him: the fat cook greeted
him with blowsy smilps ; the laMes’-maids, whether of the
French or the English nation, smirked and gigged in his
behalf ; the pretty porter’s daughter at the lodge had
always a kind word in reply to his. Madame de Bernstein
took note of all these things, and, though she said nothing,
watched carefully the boy’s disposition and behaviour.
Who can say how old Lady Maria Esmond was ? Books
of the Peerage were not so many in those days as they
are in our blessed times, and I caimot tell to a few years,
or even a lustre or two. When Will used to say she was
five-and-thirty, he was abusive, and, besides, was always
given to exaggeration. Maria was Will’s half-sister. She
and my lord were children of the late Lord Castlewood’s
first v^e, a German lady, whom, ’tis known, my lord
married in the time of Queen Anne’s wars. Baron Bern-
stein, who married Maria’s Aunt Beatrix, Bishop Tusher’s
widow, was also a German, a Hanoverian nobleman, and
relative of the first Lady Castlewood. If my Lady Maria
160
THE VIRGINIANS
was bom under Geoi^e I, and his Majesty George II had
been thirty years on the throne, how could she be seven-
and-twenty, as she told Harry Warrington she was ? ‘lam
old, child,’ she used to say. She used to call Harry ‘ child ’
when they were alone. ‘ I am a hundred years old. I am
seven-and-twenty. I might be your mother almost.’ To
which Harry would reply, ‘ Your ladyship might be the
mother of all the cupids, I am sure. You don’t look
twenty, on my word you do not ! ’
Lady Maria looked any age you liked. She was a fair
beauty with a dazzling white and red complexion, an
abundance of fair hair which flowed over her shoulders,
and beautiful round arms which showed to uncommon
advantage when she played at billiards with cousin Harry.
When she had to stretch across the table to make a stroke,
that youth caught glimpses of a little ankle, a little clocked
stocking, and a little black satin slipper with a little red
heel, which filled him with unutterable rapture, and made
him swear that there never was such a foot, ankle, clocked-
stocking, satin slipper in the world. And yet, oh, you
foolish Harry ! your mother’s foot was ever so much more
slender, and hali an inch shorter, than Lady Maria’s. But,
somehow, boys do not look at their mamma’s slippers and
ankles with rapture.
No doubt L^y Maria was very kind to Harry when they
were alone. Before her sister, aunt,, stepmother, she made
light of him, calling him a simpleton, a chit, and who
knows what trivial names. Behind his back, and even
before his face, she mimicked his accent, which smacked
somewhat of Ms province. Harry blushed and corrected
the faulty intonation, under Ms English monitresses.
His aunt pronounced that they would soon make him
a pretty fellow.
Lord Castlewood, we have said, became daily more
familiar and friendly with his guest and relative. Till
the crops were off the ground there was no sporting, except
an occasional cock-match at Winchester, and a bull-
baiting at Hexton Fair. Harry and Will rode off to many
jolly fairs and races round about : the young Virgiman
was presented to some of the county families — ^the Henleys
of the Grange, the Crawleys of Queen’s Crawley, the
Redmaynes of Lionsden, and so forth. The neighbours
came in their great heavy coaches, and passed two or
GUMBO AND THE OLD ENGLISH WEAPON 161
three days in country fashion. More of them would
have come, but for the fear all the Castlewood family
had of offending Madame de Bernstein. She did not
like country company ; the rustical society and conversa-
tion annoyed her. ‘ We shall be merrier when my aunt
leaves us/ the young folks owned. ‘ We have cause,
as you may imagine, for being very civil to her. You
know what a favourite she was with our papa ? And
with reason. She got him his earldom, being very well
indeed at Court at that time with the king and queen.
She commands here naturally, perhaps a little too much.
We are all afraid of her ; even my elder brother stands
in awe of her, and my stepmother is much more obedient
to her than she ever was to my papa, whom she ruled
with a rod of iron. But Castlewood is merrier when our
aunt is not here. At least we have much more company.
You will come to us in our gay days, Harry, won’t you ?
Of course you will : this is your home, sir. I was so
pleased, oh, so pleased, when my brother said he considered
it was your home ! ’
A soft hand is held out after this pretty speech, a pair
of very well-preserved blue eyes look exceedingly friendly.
Harry grasps his cousin’s hand with ardour. I do not
know what privilege of cousinship he would not like to
claim, only he is so timid. They call the English selfish
and cold. He at first thought his relatives were so :
but how mistaken he was ! How kind and affectionate
they are, especially the earl, and dear, dear Maria I How
he wishes he could recall that letter which he had written
to Mrs. Mountain and his mother, in which he hinted
that his welcome had been a cold one ! The earl his
cousin was everything that was kind, had promised to
introduce him to London society, and present him at Court,
and at White’s. He was to consider Castlewood as his
English home. He had been most hasty in his judgement
regarding his relatives in Hampshire. All this, with many
contrite expressions, he wrote in his second dispatch to
Virginia. And he added, for it hath been hinted that the
young gentleman did not spell at this early time with
especial accuracy, ^ My cousin, the Lady Maria, is a perfect
AngleJ"
‘ Ille p’aeter omnes angulus ridet/ muttered little Mr.
Dempster, at home in Virginia.
VIRGINIANS G
162
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ The child can’t be falling in love with his angle, as he
calls her ! ’ cries out Mountain.
‘ Pooh, pooh I my niece Maria is forty ! ’ says Madam
Ifemond. ‘ I perfectly well recollect her when I was at home
— a great, gawky, carroty creature, with a foot like a pair
of bellows.’ Where is truth, forsooth, and who knoweth
it ? Is Beauty Beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make
it so ? Does Venus squint ? Has she got a splay foot,
red hair, and a crooked back ? Anoint my eyes, good
Fairy Puck, so that I may ever consider the Beloved
Object a paragon ! Above all, keep on anointing my
mistress’s dainty peepers with the very strongest ointment,
so that my nodcUe may ever appear lovely to her, and
that she may continue to crown my honest ears with
fresh roses !
Now, not only was Harry Warrington a favourite with
some in the drawing-room, and all the ladies of the servants’
hall, but, like master like man, his valet Gumbo was veiy
much admired and respected by very many of the domestic
circle. Gumbo had a hundred accomplishments. He was
famous as a fisherman, huntsman, blacksmith. He could
dress hair beautifully, and improved himself in the art
under my lord’s own Swiss gentleman. He was great at
cooking many of his Virginian dishes, and learned many
new cuhnary secrets from my lord’s French man. We have
heard how exquisitely and melodiously he sang at church ;
and he sang not only sacred but secular music, often
inventing airs and compiling rude words after the habit
of his people. He played the fiddle so charmingly, that
he set all the girls dancing in Castlewood Hall, and was
ever welcome to a gratis mug of ale at the ‘ Three Castles ’
in the village, if he would but bring his fiddle with him.
He was good-natured, and loved to play for the village
children : so that Mr. Warrington’s negro was a universal
favourite in all the Castlewood domain.
Now it was not difficult for the servants’ hall folks to
perceive that Mr. Gumbo was a liar, which fact was un-
doubted in spite of all his good qualities. For instance,
that day at church when he pretended to read out of
Molly’s psalm-book, he sang quite other words than those
which were down in the book, of which he could not de-
cipher a syllable. And he pretended to understand music,
whereupon the Svdss valet brought him some, and Master
GXMBO AND THE OLD ENGLISH WEAPON 165
Gumbo turned the page upside down. These instances
of long-bow practice daily occurred, and were patent to
all the Castlewood household. They knew Gumbo was
a liar, perhaps not thinking the worse of him for this
weakness ; but they did not know how great a liar he
was, and believed him much more than they had any
reason for doing, and because, I suppose, they liked to
believe him.
Whatever might be his feelings of wonder and envy on
first viewing the splendour and comforts of Castlewood,
Mr. Gumbo kept his sentiments to himself, and examined
the place, park, appointments, stables, very coolly. The
horses, he said, were very well, what there were of them ;
but at Castlewood in Virginia they had six times as many,
and let me see, fourteen eighteen grooms to look after
them. Madam Esmond’s carriages were much finer than
my lord’s, — great deal more gold on the panels. As for
her gardens, they covered acres, and they grew every kind
of flower and fruit under the sxm. Pine-apples and peaches ?
Pine-apples and peaches were so common, they were given
to pigs in his country. They had twenty forty gardeners,
not white gardeners, all black gentlemen, like hisself.
In the house were twenty forty gentlemen in livery, besides
women-servants, — ^never could remember how many women-
servants, — dere were so many : tink dere were fifty women-
servants, — ^all Madam Esmond’s property, and worth ever
so many hundred pieces of eight apiece. How much
was a piece of eight ? Bigger than a guinea, a piece of
eight was. Tink, Madam Esmond have twenty thirty
thousand guineas a year, — have whole rooms fuU of gold
and plate. Came to England in one of her ships ; have
ever so many ships, Gumbo can’t count how many ships ;
and estates, covered all over with tobacco and negroes,
and reaching out for a week’s journey. Was Master Harry
heir to all this property ? Of course, now Master George was
killed and scalped by the Indians. Gumbo had killed
ever so many Lidians, and tried to save Master (Jeorge,
but he was Master Harry’s boy, — ^and Master Harry was
as rich, — oh, as rich as ever he like. He wore black
now, because Master George was dead ; but you should
see his chests full of gold-clothes, and lace, and jewels,
at Bristol. Of course. Master Harry was the richest man
in all Virginia, and might have twenty sixty servants;
166
THE VIRGINIANS
only he liked travelling with one best, and that one, it
need scarcely be said, was Gumbo.
This story was not invented at once, but gradually
elicited from Mr. Gumbo, who might have uttered some
trifling contradictions during the progress of the narrative,
but by the time he had told Ms tale twice or thrice in the ser-
vants’ hall or the butler’s private apartment, he was pretty
perfect and consistent in Ms part, and knew accurately
the number of slaves Madam Esmond kept, and the amount
of income wMch she enjoyed. The truth is, that as four
or five blacks are required to do the work of one wMte
man, the domestics in American establishments are much
more numerous than in ours ; and like the houses of most
other Virginian landed proprietors, Madam Esmond’s
mansion and stables swarmed with negroes.
Mr. Gumbo’s account of Ms mistress’s wealth and splen-
dour was carried to my lord by Ms lordsMp’s man, and to
Madame de Bernstein and my ladies by their respective
waiting- women, and, we may be sure, lost nothing in the
telling. A young gentleman in England is not the less liked
because he is reputed to be the heir to vast wealth and
possessions ; when Lady Castlewood came to hear of Harry’s
prodigious expectations, she repented of her first cool recep-
tion of Mm, and of having pinched her daughter’s arm till it
was black and blue for having been extended towards the
youth in too friendly a manner. Was it too late to have him
back into those fair arms ? Lady Eanny was welcome
to try, and resumed the dancing-lessons. The countess
would play the music with all her heart. But, how provok-
ing t ^at odious, sentimental Maria would always insist
upon being in the room ; and, as sure as Fanny walked
in the gardens or the park, so sure would her sister come
trailing after her. As for Madame de Bernstein, she
laughed, and was amused at the stories of the prodigious
fortune of her Virginian relatives. She knew her half-
sister’s man of business in London, and very likely was
aware of the real state of Madam Esmond’s money matters ;
but she did not contradict the rumours which Gumbo
and Ms fellow servants had set afloat ; and was not a little
diverted by the efiFect wMch these reports had upon the
behaviour of the Castlewood family towards their young
kinsman.
‘ Hang Mm ! Is he so rich, Molly ? ’ said my lord to
GUMBO AND THE OLD ENGLISH WEAPON 167
his elder sister. ‘ Then good-bye to our chances with your
aunt. The baroness will be sure to leave him all her money
to spite us, and because he doesn’t w'ant it. Nevertheless,
the lad is a good lad enough, and it is not his fault, being
rich, you know.’
/He is very simple and modest in his habits for one
so wealthy,’ remark Maria.
‘ Rich people often are so,’ says my lord. ‘ If I w^ere
rich, I often think I would be the greatest miser, and live
in rags and on a crust. Depend on it there is no pleasure
so enduring as money-getting. It growls on you, and
increases with old age. But because I am as poor as
Lazarus, I dress in purple and fine linen, and fare sump-
tuously every day.’
Maria went to the book-room and got the History of
Virginia, by R. B. Gent, — and read therein what an
admirable climate it was, and how all kinds of fruit and
com grew in that province, and w^hat noble rivers were
those of Potomac and Rappahannoc, abounding in all
sorts of fish. And she wondered whether the climate
would agree with her, and whether her aunt would like
her ? Amd Harry was sure his mother would adore her,
so would Mountain. And when he was asked about the
number of his mother’s servants, he said, they certainly
had more servants than are seen in England — ^he did not
know how many. But the negroes did not do near as much
work as English servants did : hence the necessity of
keeping so great a number. As for some others of Gumbo’s
details which were brought to him, he laughed and said
the boy was wonderful as a romancer, and in telling such
stories he supposed was trying to speak out for the honour
of the fanfily.
So Harry was modest as well as rich 1 Hfis denials only
served to confirm his relatives’ opinion regarding his splendid
expectations. More and more the coxmtess and the
ladies were friendly and affectionate with him. More and
more Mr. Will betted with him, and wanted to sell him
bargains. Harry’s simple dress and equipage only served
to confirm his friends’ idea of his wealth. To see a young
man of his rank and means with but one servant, and
Tidthout horses or a carriage of his own — ^vt^hat modesty !
When he went to London he would cut a better figure ?
Of course he would. Castlewood would introduce him
168
THE VIRGINIANS
to the best society in the capital, and he would appear
as he ought to appear at St. James’s. No man could
be more pleasant, wicked, lively, obsequious than the
worthy chaplain, Mr. Sampson. How proud he would
be if he could show his young friend a little of London
life 1— if he could warn rogues off him, and keep him
out of the way of harm ! Mr. Sampson was very
kind : everybody was very kind. Harry liked quite
well the respect that was paid to him. As Madam
Esmond’s son he thought perhaps it was his due : and took
for granted that he was the personage which his family
imagined him to be. How should he know better, who
had never as yet seen any place but his own province,
and why should he not respect his own condition when
other people respected it so ? So all the little knot of
people at Castlewood House, and from these the people
in Castlewood village, and from thence the people in the
whole county, chose to imagine that Mr. Harry Esmond
Warrington was the heir of immense wealth, and a gentle-
man of very great importance, because his negro valet
told lies about him in the servants’ hall.
Harry’s aunt, Madame de Bernstein, after a week or two,
began to tire of Castlewood and the inhabitants of that
mansion, and the neighbours who came to visit them.
This clever woman tir^ of most things and people sooner
or later. So she took to nodding and sleeping over the
chaplain’s stories, and to doze at her whist and over her
dinner, and to be very snappish and sarcastic in her con-
versation with her Esmond nephews and nieces, hitting
out blows at my lord and his brother the jockey, and my
ladies, widowed and unmarried, who winced under her
scornful remarks, and bore them as they best might. The
cook, whom she had so praised on first coming, now gave
her no satisfaction ; the wine was corked ; the house
was damp, dreary, and full of draughts ; the doors would
not shut, and the chimneys were smoky. She began to
thmk the Tunbridge waters were very necessary for her, and
ordered the doctor, who came to her from the neighbouring
town of Hexton, to order those waters for her benefit.
‘ I wish to Heaven she would go ! ’ growled my lord,
who was the most independent member of his family.
‘ She may go to Tunbridge, or she may go to Bath, or she
may go to Jericho, for me.’
GTOIBO AND THE OLD ENGLISH WEAPON 169
‘ Shall Fanny and I come with you to Tunbridge, dear
baroness ? ’ asked Lady Castlewood of her sister-in-law.
‘ Not for -worlds, my dear ! The doctor orders me
absolute quiet, and if you came I should have the knocker
going all day, and Fanny’s lovers would never be out
of the house,’ answered the baroness, who was quite -weary
of Lady Castlewood’s company.
‘ I wish I could be of any service to my aunt ! ’ said
the sentimental Lady Maria, demurely.
‘ My good child, what can you do for me ? You cannot
play piquet so well as my maid, and I have heard all your
songs till I am perfectly tired of them I One of the gentle-
men might go with me : at least make the journey, and
see me safe from highwaymen.’
‘ I’m sure, ma’am, I shall be glad to ride Tvith you,’ said
Mr. Will.
‘ Oh, not you ! I don’t want you, William,’ cried the
young man’s aunt. ‘ Why do not you offer, and where
are your American manners, you ungracious Harry Warring-
ton ? Don’t swear. Will. Harry is much better company
than you are, and much better Um too, sir.’
‘ Tong, indeed, confound his tong,’ growled envious
Will to himself.
‘ I dare say I shall be tired of him, as I am of other
folks,’ continued the baroness. ‘ I have scarcely seen
Harry at all in these last days. You shall ride with me
to Tunbridge, Harry ! ’
At this direct appeal, and to no one’s wonder more than
that of his aunt, Mr. Harry Warrington blushed, and
hemmed and ha’d : and at length said, ‘ I have promised
my cousin Castlewood to go over to Hexton Petty Sessions
with him to-morrow. He thinks I should see how the
courts here are conducted — an^ — and — ^the partridge shoot-
ing will soon begin, and I have promised to be here for that,
ma’am.’ Saying which words, Harry Warrington looked
as red as a poppy, whilst Lady Maria held her meek face
downwards, and nimbly plied her needle.
‘ You actually refuse to go -with me to Tunbridge Wells ? ’
called out Madame Bernstein, her eyes lightening, and her
face flushing up with anger, too.
‘ Not to ride with you, ma’am ; that I will do with all
my heart ; but to stay there — have promised
* Enough, enough, sir I I can go alone, and don’t want
Q 3
170
THE VIRGINIANS
your escort/ cried the irate old lady, and rustled out of
the room.
The Castlewood family looked at each other with wonder.
Will whistled. Lady Castlewood glanced at Fanny, as
much as to say, His chance is over. Lady Maria never
lifted up her eyes from her tambour-frame.
CHAPTER XVn
ON THE SCENT
Harry Warring-
ton’s act of revolt
came so suddenly
upon Madame de
!^rnstein, that she
had no other way of
repljdng to it, than
by the prompt out-
break of anger with
which we left her
in the last chapter.
She darted two fiep:ce
glances at. L^y
Fanny ^ >and her
moth^ asshe quitted
the room. Lady
Maria over her
tambour-frame es-
caped without the
least notice, and
scarcely lifted up her
head from her embroidery, to watch the aunt retreating,
or the looks which mamma-in-law and sister threw at one
another.
‘ So, in spite of all, you have, madam ? ’ the maternal
looks seemed to say.
* Have what ? ’ asked Lady Fanny’s eyes. But what
good in looking innocent ? She looked puzzled. She did
not- look one-tenth part as innocent as Maria. , Had she
been guilty, she woidd have looked not guilty much more
ON THE SCENT
171
cleverly ; and would have taken care to study and compose
a face so as to be ready to suit the plea. Whatever was
the expression of Fanny’s eyes, mamma glared on her
as if she would have liked to tear them out.
But Lady Castlewood could not operate upon the said
eyes then and there, like the barbarous monsters in the
stage-direction in King Lear. When her ladyship was
going to tear out her daughter’s eyes, she would retire
smiling, with an arm round her dear child’s waist, and then
gouge her in private.
" So you don’t fancy going with the old lady to Tunbridge
Wells ? * was all she said to cousin Warrington, wearing at
the same time a perfectly well-bred simper on her face.
‘ And small blame to our cousin ! ’ interposed my lord.
(The face over the tambour-frame looked up for one
instant.) ‘ A young fellow must not have it all idling and
holiday. Let him mix up something useful with his
pleasures, and go to the fiddles and pump-rooms at Tun-
bridge or the Bath later. Mr. Warrington has to conduct
a great estate in America : let him see how ours in England
are carried on. Will hath shown him the kennel and the
stables ; and the games in vogue, which I think, cousin, you
seem to play as well as your teachers. After harvest we
wiU show him a little English fowling and shooting : in winter
we will take him out a-hunting. Though there has been
a coolness between us and our aunt-kinswoman in Virginia,
yet we are of the same blood. Ere we send our cousin
back to his mother, let us show him what an English
gentleman’s life at home is. I should like to read with
him as well as sport with him, and that is why I have
been pressing him of late to stay and bear me company.’
My lord spoke with such perfect frankness that his
mother-in-law and half-brother and sister could not help
wondering what his meaning could be. The three last-
named persons often held little conspiracies together, and
caballed or grumbled against the head of the house. When
he adopted that frank tone, there was no fathoming his
meaning : often it would not be discovered until months
had passed. He did not say, ‘ This is true ’, but, " I mean
that this statement should be accepted and believed in
my family.’ It was then a thing convenue, that my Lord
Castlewood had a laudable desire to cultivate the domestic
affections, and to educate, amuse, and improve his young
172
THE VIRGINIANS
relative ; and that he had taken a great fancy to the lad,
and wished that Harry should stay for some time near
his lordship.
‘ What is Castlewood’s game now ? ’ asked WiUiam of
his mother and sister as they disappeared into the corridors.
‘ Stop ! By George I have it ! ’
‘ What, WiUiam ? ’
‘ He intends to get him to play, and to win the Virginia
estate back from Mm. That’s what it is ! ’
" But the lad has not got the Virginia estate to pay,
if he loses,’ remarks mamma.
‘ If my brother has not some scheme in view, may
I be .’
‘ Hush ! Of course he has a scheme in view. But what
is it ? ’
‘ He can’t mean Maria — ^Maria is as old as Harry’s
mother,’ muses Mr. WiUiam.
* Pooh ! with her old face and sandy hair and freckled
skin ! Impossible t ’ cries Lady Fanny, with somewhat
of a sigh.
‘ Of course, your ladysMp had a fancy for the Iroquois,
too 1 ’ cried mamma.
* I trust I know my station and duty better, madam !
If I had liked Mm, that is no reason why I should marry
Mm. Your ladyship hath taught me as much as that.’
" My Lady Fanny ! ’
‘ I am sure you married our papa without liking Mm.
You have told me so a thousand times ! ’
‘ And if you did not love our father before marriage,
you certainly did not faU in love with him afterwards,’
broke in Mr. WiUiam, with a laugh. ‘ Fan and I remember
how our honoured parents used to fight. Don’t us. Fan ?
And our brother Esmond kept the peace.’
‘ Don’t recall those dreadful low scenes, WiUiam 1 ’
cries mamma. ‘ When your father took too much drink,
he w^as like a madman ; and his conduct should be a warning
to you, sir, who are fond of the same horrid practice.’
‘ I am sure, madam, you were not much the happier
for marrying the man you did not like, and your ladyship’s
title hath brought very little along with it,’ wMmpered out
Lady Fanny. ‘ What is the use of a coronet with the
jointure of a tradesman’s wife ? — ^how many of them are
richer than w^e are ? There is come lately to live in our
ON THE SCENT
173
Square, at Kensington, a grocer’s ^^idow from London
Bridge, whose daughters have three govms where I have
one ; and who, though they are waited on but by a man
and a couple of maids, I know eat and drink a thousand
times better than we do with our scraps of cold meat on
our plate, and our great flaunting, trapesing, impudent,
lazy lackeys ! ’
‘ He ! he ! glad I dine at the palace, and not at home I ’
said Mr. Will, (Mr. Will, through his aunt’s interest
with Count Puffendorff, groom of the royal (and serene
electoral) powder-closet, had one of the many small places
at Court, that of deputy powder.)
‘ Why should I not be happy without any title except
my own ? ’ continued Lady !l^ances. * Many people are.
I dare say they are even happy in America.’
‘ Yes ! with a mother-in-law who is a perfect Turk and
Tartar, for all I hear — ^with Indian war-whoops howling
all round you : and with a danger of losing your scalp,
or of being eat up by a wild beast every time you went
to church.’
* I wouldn’t go to church,’ said Lady Fanny.
‘ You’d go with anybody who asked you, Fan I ’ roared
out Mr. Will : ‘ and so would old Maria, and so would
any woman, that’s the fact : ’ and Will laughed at his own
wit.
‘ Pray, good folks, what is all your merriment about ? ’
here asked Madame Bernstein, peeping in on her relatives
from the tapestried door which led into the gallery where
their conversation was held.
Will told her that his mother and sister had been having
a fight ^which was not a novelty, as Madame Bernstein
knew), because Fanny wanted to marry their cousin,
the wild Indian, and my lady countess would not let
her. Fanny protested against this statement. Since the
very first day when her mother had told her not to speak
to the young gentleman, she had scarcely exchanged two
words with him. She knew her station better. She
did not want to be scalped by wild Indians, or eat up by
bears.
Madame de Bernstein looked puzzled. ‘ If he is not
staying for you, for whom is he staying ? ’ she asked.
‘ At the houses to which he has been carried, you have
taken care not to show him a woman that is not a fright
174
THE VIRGINIANS
or in the nursery ; and I think the boy is too proud to fall
in love with a dairymaid, Will.’
* Humph ! That is a matter of taste, ma’am,’ says
Mr. William, with a shrug of his shoulders.
‘ Of Mr. William Esmond’s taste, as you say ; but not
of yonder boy’s. The Esmonds of his grandfather’s nurture,
sir, would not go a-courting in the kitchen.’
‘Well, ma’am, every man to his taste, I say again.
A fellow might go farther and fare worse than my brother’s
servants’ hail, and, besides Fan, there’s only the maids
or old Maria to choose from.’
‘ Maria ! Impossible ! ’ And yet, as she spoke the very
words, a sudden thought crossed Madame Bernstein’s
mind, that this elderly Calypso might have captivated
her young Telemachus. She called to mind half a dozen
instances in her own experience of young men who had
been infatuated by old women. She remembered how
frequent Harry Warrington’s absences had been of late —
absences which she attnbuted to his love for field sports.
She remembered how often; when he was absent, Maria
Esmond was away too. Walks in cool avenues, whisperings
in garden temples, or behind dipt hedges, casual squeezes
of the hand in twilight corridors, or sweet glances and
ogles in meetings on the stairs, — a lively fancy, an intimate
knowledge of the world, very likely a considerable personal
experience in early days, suggest^ all these possibilities
and chances to Madame de Bernstein, just as she was
saying that they were imposdble.
‘ Impossible, ma’am ! I don’t know,’ Will continued.
‘ My mother warned Fan off him.’
‘ Oh, your mother did warn Fanny off ? ’
‘ Certainly, my dear baroness I ’
‘ Didn’t she ? Didn’t she pinch Fanny’s arm black and
blue ? Didn’t they fight about it ? ’ *
‘ Nonsense, William I For shame, William ! ’ cry both
the implicated ladies in a breath.
‘ And now, since we have heard how rich he is, perhaps
it is sour grapes, that is all. And now, since he is warned
off the yoxmg bird, perhaps he is hunting the old one,
that’s all. Impossible ! why impossible ? You know old
Lady Suffolk, ma’am ? ’
‘WiUiam, how can you speak about Lady Suffolk to
your aunt ? ’
ON THE SCENT
175
A grin passed over the countenance of the young gentle-
man. ‘ Because Lady Suffolk was a special favourite at
Court ? Well, other folks have succeeded her.’
‘ Sir ! ’ cries Madame de Bernstein, who may have had
her reasons to take offence.
‘ So they have, I say; or who, pray, is my Lady Yarmouth
now ? And didn’t old Lady Suffolk go and fall in love
with George Berkeley, and marry Mm when she was
ever so old ? Nay, ma’am, if I remember right — and
we hear a deal of town-talk at our table — Harry Estridge
went mad about your ladysMp when you were somewhat
rising twenty ; and would have changed your name a
third time if you would but have let Mm.’
TMs allusion to an adventure of her own later days,
which was, indeed, pretty notorious to all the world, did
not anger Madame de Bernstein, like Will’s former hint
about Ms aunt having been a favourite at George the
Second’s Court ; but, on the contrary, set her in good
humour.
‘ Au she said, musing, as she played a pretty
little hand on the table, and no doubt thinking about
mad young Harry Estridge ; ‘ ’tis not impossible, William,
that old folks and young folks, too, should play the fool.’
‘ Bub I can’t understand a young fellow feng in love
with Maria,’ continued Mr. William, ‘ however he might
be with you, ma’am. That’s oter shose, as our French tutor
used to say. You remember the count, ma’am ; he, he !
— and so does Maria 1 ’
‘ William ! ’
‘ And I dare say the count remembers the bastinado
Castlewood had given to Mm. A confounded French
dancing-master calling himself a count, and daring to fall
in love in our family ! Whenever I want to make myself
uncommonly agreeable to old Maria, I just say a few
words of 'parly^voo to her. She knows what I mean.’
‘ Have you abused her to your cousin, Harry Warring-
ton ? ’ asked Madame de Bernstein.
‘ Well — I know she is always abusing me — and I have
said my mind about her,’ said Will.
‘ Oh, you idiot I ’ cried the old lady. " Who but a gaby
ever spoke ill of a woman to her sweetheart ? He will tell
her everything, and they both will hate you.’
‘ The very thing, ma’am ! ’ cried Will, bursting into
176
THE VIRGINIANS
a great laugh. ^ I had a sort of a suspicion, you see, and
two days ago, as we were riding together, I told Harry
Warrington a bit of my mind about Maria ; — why shouldn’t
I, I say ? She is always abusing me, ain’t she, Pan ? And
your favourite turned as red as my plush waistcoat — ^won-
dered how a gentleman could malign his own flesh and
blood, and, trembling aU over with rage, said I was no
true Esmond.’
‘ Why didn’t you chastise him, sir, as my lord did the
dancing-master ? ’ cried Lady Castlewood.
‘Well, mother, — ^you see that at quarterstafl there’s
two sticks used,’ replied Mr. William ; ‘ and my opinion is,
that Harry Warrington can guard his own head uncom-
monly well. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I did
not offer to treat my cousin to a caning. And now you
say so, ma’am, I know he has told Maria. She has been
looking battle, murder, and sudden death at me ever since.
All which shows — and here he turned to his aunt.
‘ AU which shows what ? ’
‘ That I think we are on the right scent ; and that
we’ve found Maria — ^the old fox 1 ’ And the ingenuous
youth here clapped his hand to his mouth, and gave a
loud haUoo.
How far had this pretty intrigue gone ? now was the
question. Mr. WiU said, that at her age, Maria would
be for conducting matters as rapidly as possible, not having
much time to lose. There was not a great deal of love
lost between WiU and his half-sister.
‘ Who would sift the matter to the bottom ? Scolding
one party or the other was of no avail. Threats only
serv^ to aggravate people in such cases. I never was in
danger but once, young people,’ said Madame de Bernstein,
‘and I think that was because my poor mother contra-
dicted me. If this boy is like others of his family, the
more we oppose him, the more entete he wiU be ; and we
shaU never get him out of his scrape.’
‘ Faith, ma’am, suppose we leave him in it ? ’ grumbled
WiU. ‘ Old Maria and I don’t love each other too much,
I grant you ; but an English earl’s daughter is good
enough for an American tobacco-planter, when aU is said
and done.’
Here his mother and sister broke out. They would not
hear of such a union. To which WiU answered, ‘ You are
ON THE SCENT
177
like the dog in the manger. You don’t want the man
yourself, Fanny ’
‘ / want him, indeed 1 ’ cries Lady Fanny, with a toss
of her head.
‘ Then why grudge him to Maria ? I think Castlewood
wants her to have him.’
‘ Why grudge him to Maria, sir ? ’ cried Madame de
Bernstein with great energy. ‘ Do you remember who
the poor boy is, and what your house owes to his family ?
His grandfather was the best friend your father ever had,
and gave up this estate, this title, this very castle, in which
you are conspiring against the friendless Virginian lad,
that you and yours might profit by it. And the reward
for all this kindness is, that you all but shut the door on
the child when he knocks at it, and talk of marr 3 nng him
to a siUy elderly creature who might be his mother I He
shan^t marry her.’
‘ The very thing we were saying and thinking, my dear
baroness I ’ interposes Lady Castlewood. ‘ Our part of
the family is not eager about the match, though my lord
and Maria may be.’
‘ You would like him for yourself now that you hear
he is rich — and may be richer, young people, mind you that,’
cried Madam Beatrix, turning upon the other women.
‘ Mr. Warrington may be ever so rich, madam, but there
is no need why your ladyship should perpetually remind
us that we are poor,’ broke in Lady Castlewood, with some
spirit. ‘ At least there is very little disparity in Fanny’s
age and Mr. Harry’s ; and you surely will be the last to
say that a lady of our name and family is not good enough
for any gentleman born in Virginia or elsewhere.’
‘ Let Faimy take an English gentleman, countess, not
an American. With such a name and such a mother to
help her, and with all her good looks and accomplishments,
sure, she can’t fail of finding a man worthy of her. But
from what I know about the daughters of this house,
and what I imagine about our young cousin, I am certain
that no happy match could be made between them.’
‘ What does my aunt know about me ? ’ asked Lady
Fanny, turning very red.
‘ Only your temper, my dear. You don’t suppose that
I believe all the tittle-tattle and scandal which one cannot
help hearing in town ? But the temper and early education
178
THE VIRGINIANS
are sufficient. Only fancy one of you condemned to leave
St. James’s and the Mail, and live in a plantation surrounded
by savages t You would die of ennui, or worry your
husband’s life out with your ill humour. You are born,
ladies, to ornament courts — ^not wigwams. Let this lad
go back to his wilderness with a wife who is suited to him.’
The other two ladies declared in a breath that, for their
parts, they desired no better, and, after a few more words,
went on their way, while Madame de Bernstein, lifting
up her tapestried door, retired into her own chamber.
She saw all the scheme now ; she admired the ways of
women, calling a score of little circumstances back to
mind. She wondered at her own blindness during the
last few days, and that she. should not have perceived the
rise and progress of this queer little intrigue. How far
had it gone ? was now the question. Was Harry’s passion
of the serious and tragical sort, or a mere fire of straw which
a day or two would bum out ? How deeply was he com-
mitt^ ? She dreaded the strength of Harry’s passion,
and the weakness of Maria’s. A woman of her age is so
desperate, Madame Bernstein may have thought, that she
will make any efforts to secure a lover. Scandal, bah !
She will retire and be a princess in Virginia, and leave
the folks in England to talk as much scandal as they
choose.
Is there always, then, one thing which women do not
tell to one another, and about which they agree to deceive
each other ? Does the concealment arise from deceit or
modesty ? A man, as socm as he feels an inclination for
one of the other sex/ seeks fm: a friend of his own to whom
he may impart the delightful intelligence. A woman
(with more or less skill) buries her secret away from her
kind. For days and weeks past, had not this old Maria
made fools of the whole house, — Maria, the butt of the
family ?
I forbear to go into too curious inquiries regarding the
Lady Maria’s antecedents. I have my own opinion about
Madame Bernstein’s. A hundred years ago, people of
the great world were not so strait-laced as they are now,
when everybody is good, pure, moral, modest ; when there
is no skeleton in anybody’s closet ; when there is no
scheming ; no slurring over of old stories ; when no girl
tries to sell herself for wealth, and no mother abets her.
ON THE SCENT
m
Suppose my Lady Maria tries to make her little game,
wherein is her ladyship’s great eccentricity ?
On these points no doubt the Baroness de Bernstein
thought, as she communed with herself in her private
apartment.
CHAPTER XVni
AN OLB STOEY
s my Lady Castlewood and her
son and daughter passed through
one door of the saloon where
they had all been seated, my
Lord Castlewood departed by
another issue ; and then the
demure eyes looked up from the
tambour-frame on which they
had persisted hitherto in examin-
ing the innocent violets and
jonquils. The eyes looked up
at Harry Warrington, who stood
at an ancestral portrait under
the great fireplace. He had
gathered a great heap of blushes
(those flowers which bloom so
rarely after gentlefolks’ spring-
time), and with them ornamented his honest countenance,
his cheeks, his forehead, nay, his youthful ears.
‘ Why ^d you refuse to go with our aunt, cousin ? ’
asked the lady of the tambour-frame.
‘ Because your ladyship bade me stay,’ answered the
lad.
‘ I bid you stay ! La ! child ! What one says in fun,
you take in earnest ! Are all you Virginian gentlemen
so obsequious as to fancy every idle word a lady says is
a command ? Virginia must be a pleasant country for
our sex if it be so ! ’
‘ You said — ^when — when we walked in the terrace two
nights since, — 0 Heaven ! ’ cried Harry, with a voice trem-
bling with emotion.
180 THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Ah, that sweet night, cousin ! ’ cries the Tambour-
frame.
‘ Whe — ^whe — ^when you gave me this rose from your
own neck — ’ roared out Harry, pulling suddenly a crumpled
and decayed vegetable from his waistcoat — ‘ which I will
never part with — ^with, no, by Heavens, whilst this heart
continues to beat ! You said, Harry, if your aunt asks
you to go away, you wiU go, and if you go, you will forget
me.’’ — DidnH you say so ? ’
‘ All men forget ! ’ said the virgin, with a sigh.
‘ In this cold selfish country they may, cousin, not in
ours,’ continues Harry, yet in the same state of exaltation —
‘ I had rather have lost an arm almost than refused the
old lady. I tell you it went to my heart to say no to her,
and she so kind to me, and who had been the means
of introducing me to — to — 0 heaven ! ’ . . . (Here a kick
to an intervening spaniel, which flies yelping from before
the fire, and a rapid advance on the Tambour-frame.)
‘ Look here, cousin ! If you were to bid me jump out of
yonder window, I should do it; or murder, I should
do it.’ .. ,
‘ La I but you need not squeeze one’s hand ^ yor( silly
child I ’ remarks Maria.
‘ I can’t help it — ^we are so in the South. Where my
heart is, I can’t help speaking my mind out, cousin — and
ycm know where that heart is ! Ever since that evening —
that — 0 Heaven ! I tell you I have hardly slept since —
I want to do something — ^to distinguish myself — to be ever
so great. I wish there was Giants, Maria, as I have read
of in — ^in books, that I could go and fight ’em. I wish you
was in distress, that I might help you, somehow. I wish
you wanted my blood, that I might spend every drop of
it for you. And when you told me not to go with Madame
Bernstein ’
‘ I tell thee, child ? never.’
‘ I thought you told me. You said you knew I preferred
my aunt to my cousin, and I said then what I say now,
Incomparable Maria I I prefer thee to all the women
in the world and all the angels in Paradise — and I would
go anywhere, were it to dungeons, if you ordered me 1 ”
And do you think I would not stay anywhere, when you
only desired that I should be near you ? ’ he added, after
a moment’s pause.
AN OLD STORY
183
* Men always talk in that way — ^that is, — that is, I have
heard so,’ said the spinster, correcting herself ; ‘ for what
should a country-bred woman know about you creatures ?
When you are near us, they say you are all raptures and
flames and promises, and I don’t know what ; when you
are away, you forget all about us.’
‘ But I think I never want to go away as long as I live,’
groaned out the young man. ‘ I have tired of many
things; not books and that, I never cared for study
much ; but games and sports which I used to be fond of
when I was a boy. Before I saw you, it was to be a soldier
I most desired ; I tore my hair with rage when my poor
dear brother went away instead of me on that expedition in
which we lost him. But now, I only care for one thing
in the world, and you know what that is.’
‘ You silly child ! don’t you know I am almost old enough
to be ? ’
‘ I know — I know I but what is that to me ? Hasn’t
your br well, never mind who, some of ’em — told
me stories against you, and didn’t they show me the
Family Bible, where aU your names are down, and the
dates of your birth ? ’
‘ The cowards I Who did that ? ’ cried out Lady Maria.
‘ Dear Harry, tell me who did that ? Was it my mother-
in-law, the grasping, odious, abandoned, brazen harpy ?
Do you know all at^ut her ? How she married my father
in his cups — ^the horrid hussy ! — ^and ’
‘ Indeed it wasn’t Lady Gastlewood,’ interposed the
wondering Harry.
‘ Then it was my aunt,’ continued the infuriate lady.
‘ A pretty moralist, indeed ! A bishop’s widow, forsooth,
and I should like to know whose widow before and after-
wards. Why, Harry, she intrigued with the Pretender,
and with the Court of Hanover, and, I daresay, would with
the Court of Rome and the Sultan of Turkey if she had
had ‘the means. Do you know who her second husband
was ? A creature who ’
‘ But our aunt never spoke a word against you,’ broke
in Harry, more and more amazed at the nymph’s
vehemence.
She checked her anger. In the inquisitive countenance
opposite to her she thought she read some alarm as to the
temper which she was exhibiting.
184
THE VniGINIAHS
^ Well, well ! I am a fool,’ she said. ‘ I want thee to
think weU of me, Harry ! ’
A hand is somehow put out and seized, and, no doubt,
kissed by the rapturous youth. ‘ Angel ! ’ he cries, looking
into her face with Ms eager, honest eyes.
Two fish-pools irradiated by a pair of stars would not
kindle to greater warmth than did those elderly orbs into
wMch Harry poured Ms gaze. Nevertheless, he plunged
into their blue depths, and fancied he saw Heaven in their
calm brightness. So that silly dog (of whom Aesop or
the Spelhng-book used to tell us in youth) beheld a beef-
bone in the pond, and snapped at it, and lost the beef-bone
he was carrying. 0 absurd cur ! He saw the beef-bone
in Ms own mouth reflected in the treacherous pool, which
dimpled, I dare say, with ever so many smiles, coolly
sucked up the meat, and returned to its usual placidity.
Ah ! what a heap of wreck lies beneath some of those quiet
surfaces ! What treasures we have dropped into them 1
What chased golden dishes, what precious jewels of love,
what bones after bones, and sweetest heart’s flesh ! Do
not some very faithful and unlucky dogs jump in bodily,
when they are swallowed up heads and tails entirely ?
When some women come to be dragged, it is a marvel what
will be found in the depths of them. Gavete, canes ! Have
a care how ye lap that water. What do they want with us,
the miscMevous siren sluts ? A green-ey^ Naiad never
rests until she has inveigled a fellow under the water;
she sings after Mm, she dances after Mm ; she winds round
him, glittering tortuously ; she warbles and whispers dainty
secrets at Ms cheek ; she kisses Ms feet ; she leers at Mm
from out of her rushes : all her beds sigh out, ‘ Come, sweet
youth ! Hither, Mther, rosy Hylas ! ’ Pop goes Hylas.
(Surely the fable is renewed for ever and ever ?) Has Ms
captivator any pleasure ? Doth she take any account
of Mm ? No more than a fisherman landing at Brighton
does of one out of a hundred thousand herrings. . . . ‘ The
last time Ulysses rowed by the Sirens’ ba^, he and Ms
men did not care though a whole shoal of them were singing
and combing their longest locks. Young Telemachus
was for jumping overboard ; but the tough old crew held
the silly, bawling lad. They were deaf, and could not
hear Ms bawling nor the sea-nymphs’ singing. They were
dim of sight, and did not see how lovely the witches were.
AN OLD STORY
185
The stale, old, leering witches ! Away with ye ! I dare say
you have painted your cheeks by this time ; your wretched
old songs are as out of fashion as Mozart, and it is all false
hair you are combing !
In the last sentence you see Lector Benevolus and
Scriptor Doctissimus figure as tough old Ulysses and his
tough old boatswain, who do not care a quid of tobacco
for any siren at Sirens’ Point; but Harry Warrington
is green Telemachus, who, be sure, was very unlike the
soft youth in the good Bishop of Cambray’s twaddling
story. He does not see that the siren paints the lashes
from under which she ogles him ; will put by into a box
when she has done the ringlets into which she would
inveigle him ; and if she eats him, as she proposes to do,
will crunch his bones with a new set of grinders just from
the dentist’s, and warranted for mastication. The song
is not stale to Harry Warrington, nor the voice cracked
or out of tune that sings it. But — but — oh, dear me,
Brother Boatswain ! Don’t you remember how pleasant
the opera was when we first heard it ? Cod fan tvMi was
its name — ^Mozart’s music. Now, I dare say, they have
other words, and other music, and other singers and fiddlers,
and another great crowd in the pit. Well, well, Gosi
fan twtti is still upon the bills, and they are going on singing
it over and over and over.
Any man or woman with a pennyworth of brains, or
the like precious amount of personal experience, or who
has read a novel before, must, when Harry pulled out
those faded vegetables just now, have gone off into a
digression of his own, as the writer confesses for himself
he was diverging whilst he has been writing the last brace
of paragraphs. If he sees a pair of lovers whispering in
a garden alley or the embrasure of a window, or a pair
of glances shot across the room from Jenny to the artless
Jessamy, he falls to musing on former days when, &c.
&c. These things follow each other by a general law,
which is not as old as the hills, to be sure, but as old as the
people who walk up and down them. A^en, I say, a lad
pulls a bunch of amputated and now decomposing greens
from his breast and falls to kissing it, what is the use of
saying much more ? As well tell the market-gardener’s
name from whom the slip-rose was bought — ^the waterings,
clippings, trimmings, manurings, the plant has undergone —
186
THB VIRGINIANS
as tell how Harry Warrington came by it. Rose, eUe a vecu
la vie de$ roses, has been trimmed, has been watered, has
been potted, has been sticked, has been cut, worn, given
away, transferred to yonder boy’s pocket-book and bosom,
according to the laws and fate appertaining to roses.
And how came Maria to give it to Harry ? And how
did he come to want it and to prize it so passionately when
he got the bit of rubbish ? Is not one story as stale as
the other ? Are not they all ahke ? What is the use,
I say, of telling them over and over ? Harry values that
rose because Maria has ogled him in the old way; because she
has happened to meet him in the garden in the old way ;
because he has tak^ her hand in the old way ; because
they have whispered to one another behind the old curtain
(the gaping old rag, as if everybody could not peep through
it !) ; because, in this delicious weather, they have hap-
pened to be early risers and go into the park ; because
dear Goody Jenkins in the village happened to have a bad
knee, and my Lady Maria went to read to her, and give
her oalves’-foot jelly, and because somebody, of course,
must carry the ba^et. Whole chapters might have
been written to chronicle all these circumstances,^ but
A quoi boni The incidents of life, and love-making
especially, I believe to resemble each other so much, that
I am surprised, gentlemen and ladies, you read novels
any more, Psha ! Of course that rose in young Harry’s
pocket-book had grown, and had budded, and had bloomed,
and was now rotting, like other roses. I suppose you will
want me to say that the young fool kissed it next ? Of
course he kissed it. What were lips made for, pray, but
for smiling and simpering and (possibly) humbugging,
and kissing, and opening to receive mutton-chops, cigars,
and so forth ? I cannot write this part of the story of
our Virginians, because Harry did not dare to write it himself
to anybody at home, because, if he wrote any letters to
Maria (which, of course, he did, as they were in the same
house, and might meet each other as much as they liked),
they were destroyed; because he afterwards chose to be very
silent about the story, and we can’t have it from her
ladyship, who never told the truth about anything. But
cui bom ? I say again. What is the good of telSng the
story ? My gentle reader, take your story : take mine.
To-morrow it shall be Miss Fanny’s, who is just walking
AN OLD STORY
187
away with her doll to the school-room, and the governess
(poor victim ! she has a version of it in her desk) : and
next day it shall be Baby’s, who is bawling out on the
stairs for his bottle.
Maria might like to have and exercise power over the
young Virginian ; but she did not want that Harry should
quarrel with his aunt for her sake, or that Madame
de Bernstein should be angry with her. Harry was not
the lord of Virginia yet ; he was only the prince, and the
queen might marry and have other princes, and the laws
of primogeniture might not be established in Virginia,
qv^en savait-elle? My lord her brother and she had
exchanged no words at all about the delicate business.
But they understood each other, and the earl had a way
of understanding things without speaking. He knew
his Maria perfectly well : in the course of a life of which
not a httle had been spent in her brother’s company and
under his roof, Maria’s disposition, ways, tricks, faults,
had come to be perfectly understood by the head of the
family ; and she would find her little schemes checked
or aided by him, as to his lordship seemed good, and without
need of any words between them. Thus three days before,
when she happened to be going to see that poor dear old
Goody, who was iU with the sore knee in the village (and
when Harry Warrington happened to be walking behind
the elms on the green, too), my lord with his dogs about
him, and his gardener walking after him, crossed the court,
just as Lady Maria was tripping to the gate-house — and
his lordship called his sister, and said : ‘ Molly, you are
going to see Goody Jenkins. You are a charitable soul,
my dear. Give Gammer Jenkins this half-crown for me —
unless our cousin, Warrington, has already given her
money. A pleasant walk to you. Let her want for nothing.’
And at supper, my lord asked Mr. Warrington many
questions about the poor in Virginia, and the means of
maintaining them, to which the young gentleman gave
the best answers he might. His lordship wished that in the
old country there were no more poor people than in the
new : and recommended Harry to visit the poor and people
of every degree, indeed, high and low — ^in the country to
look at the agriculture, in the city at the manufactures
and municipal institutions — ^to which edifying advice Harry
acceded with becoming modesty and few words, and Madame
188
THE VIRGINIANS
Bernstein nodded approval over her piquet with the
chaplain. Next day, Harry was in my lord’s justice-room :
the next day he was out ever so long with my lord on the
farm — and coming home, what does my lord do, but look
in on a sick tenant ? I think Lady Maria was out on
that day, too ; she had been reading good books to that
poor dear Goody Jenkins, though I don’t suppose Madame
Bernstein ever thought of asking about her niece.
Castlewood, Hampshire, England, August 5, 1757.
My DEAR Mountain, — At first, as I wrote, I did not like Castle-
wood, nor my cousins there very much Now, I am used to their
vjays, and we begin to understand each other much better. With
my duty to my mother, tell her, I hope, that considering her lady-
ship’s great kmdness to me. Madam Esmcmd will be reconciled to
her half-sister, the Baroness de Bernstein. Ttie baroness, you know,
was my gran<^amma’s daughter by her first husband. Lord Castle-
wood (only grandpapa really was the real lord) ; however, that was
not his, that is the other Lord Castlewood’s fault, you ^ow, and
he was very kind to grandpapa, who always spoke most kindly of
him to us oa you hmo.
Madame the Baroness Bernstein first married a clergyman.
Reverend Mr. Tusher, who was so learned and goody and such a
favourite of his Majesty, as was my aunt, too, that he was made
a Bishopp, When he died. Our graciom King continued his friend-
ship to my aunt; who married a Hanoverian nobleman, who
occupied a post at the Court — and I believe left the baroness very
rich. My cousin, my Lord Castlewood, told me so much about her,
and I am sure I have found from her the greatest kindness and
afieclaon.
The (Dowiger) Coxmtess Castlewood and my couans Will and
Lady Eanny have beai described perkst, that went by the Falmouth
packet on the 20th ult. The ladies are not changed since then.
Me and Cousin Will are very good friends. We have rode out
a good deal. We have had some famous cocking matches at Hamp-
ton and Winton. My cousin is a sharp Made, but I think I have
shown him that we in Virginia know a thing or two. Reverend
Mr. Sampson, chaplain of thefamaly,mo5f exedleut preacher, without
any biggatry.
The kindness of my cousin the Earl improves every day, and by
next year’s ship I hope my mother will send his lordship some of our
best roll tobacco (for tennants) and hamms. He is most charataJble
to the poor. His sister, Lady Maria, equally so. She sits for hours
reading good books to the sick ; she is most beloved in the village.
* Nonsense 1 ’ said a lady to whom Harry submitted his
precious manuscript, ‘ Why do you flatter me, cousin ? ’
‘ You are beloved in the vfllage and out of it,’ said Harry,
AN OLD STORY
191
with a knowing emphasis, ‘ and I have flattered you, as
you call it, a little more still, further on.’
There is a sick old woman there, whom Madam Esmond would
like, a most rdtigioiLS, good, old lady.
Lady Maria goes very often to read to her ; which, she says, gives
her comfort. But though her ladyship hath the sweetest voice,
hoth in speaking and singeing (she plays the church organ, and singes
there most beautifully), I cannot think Gammer Jenkins can have
any comfort from it, being very deaf, by reason of her great age.
She has her memory perfectly, however, and remembers when my
honoured grandmother Rachel Lady Castlewood lived here.
She says, my grandmother was the best woman in the whole world,
gave her a cow when she was married, and cured her husband.
Gaffer Jenkins, of the collects, which he used to have very bad.
I suppose it was with the Pills and Drops which my honoured mother
put up in my boxes, when I left dear Virginia. Having never been
ill since, have had no use for the pills. Gumbo hath, eating and
drinking a great deal too much in the Servants’ Hall. The next
angel to my grandmother (N.B. I think I spelt ongeZ wrong per last),
Gammer Jenkins says, is Lady Maria, who sends her duty to her
aunt in Virginia, and remembers her, and my grandpapa and grand-
mamma when they were in Europe, and she was a little girl. You
know they have grandpapa’s picture here, and I live in the very
rooms which he had, and which are to be called mine, my Lord
Castlewood says.
Having no more to say, at present, I close with best love and duty
to my honoured mother, and with respects to Mr. Dempster, and
a kiss for Fanny, and kind remembrances to Old Gumbo, Nathan,
Old and Young Dinah, and the pointer dog and Slut, and all friends,
from their well-wisher,
Henry Esmond Warrington.
Have wrote and sent my duty to my Uncle Warrington in Norfolk.
No anser as yet.
^ I hope the spelling is right, cousin ? ’ asked the author
of the letter, from the critic to whom he showed it.
‘ ’Tis quite well enough spelt for any person of fashion,’
answered Lady Maria, who did not choose to be examined
too closely regarding the orthography.
‘One word “Angel”, I know, I spelt wrong in writing
to my mamma, but I have learned a way of spelling it
right, now.’
‘ And how is that, sir ? ’
‘ I think ’tis by looking at you, cousin ’ ; saying which
words, Mr. Harry made her ladyship a low bow, and accom-
panied the bow by one of his best blushes, as if he were
offering her a bow and a bouquet.
192
THE YmamiAHS
CHAPTER XIX
OOOTAINING BOTH LOVE AND LDCK
T the next meal, when the
family party assembled, there
was not a trace of displeasure
in Madame de Bernstein’s
coimtenance, and her beha-
viour to all the company,
Harry included, was perfectly
kind and cordial. She praised
the cook this time, declared
the fricassee was excellent,
and that there were no eels
anywhere like those in the
Castlewood moats; would not
allow that the wine was
corked, or hear of such ex-
travagance as opening a fresh
bottle for a useless old woman like her ; gave Madam^mond
Warrington, of Virginia, as her toast, when the new wine was
brought, and hoped Harry had brought away his mamma’s
permission to take back an English wife with him. He
did not remember his grandmother ; her, Madame de
Bernstein’s, dear mother? The baroness amused the
company with numerous stories of her mpther, of her
beauty and goodness, of her happiness with her second
husband, though the wife was so much older than Colonel
Esmond. To see them together was delightful, she had
heard. Their attachment was celebrated all through
the country. To talk of disparity in marriages was vain
after that. My Lady Castlewood and her two children
held their peace wMlst Madame Bernstein prattled. Harry
was enraptured, and Maria surprised. Lord Castlewood
was puzzled to know what sudden freak or scheme had
occasioned this prodigious amiability on the part of his
aunt ; but did not allow the slightest expression of solicitude
or doubt to appear on his countenance, which wore every
mark of the most perfect satisfaction.
The baroness’s good humour infected the whole family ;
LOVE AND LUCK
193
not one person at table escaped a gracious word from her.
In reply to some compliment to Mr. Will, when that artless
youth uttered an expression of satisfaction and surprise at
his aunt’s behaviour, she frankly said : ‘ Complimentary,
my dear ! Of course I am. I want to make up with you
for having been exceedingly rude to everybody this morning.
When I was a child, and my father and mother were alive,
and lived here, I remember I used to adopt exactly the
same behaviour. If I had been naughty in the morning,
I used to try and coax my parents at night. I remember
in this Very room, at this very table — oh, ever so many
hundred years ago ! — so coaxing my father, and mother,
and your grandfather, Harry Warrington : and there were
eels for supper, as we have had them to-night, and it was
that dish of collared eels which brought the circumstance
back to my mind. I had been just as wayward that day,
when I was seven years old, as I am to-day, when I am
seventy, and so I confess my sins, and ask to be forgiven,
like a good girl.’
* ^ I absolve your ladyship ! ’ cried the chaplain, who made
one of the party.
‘ But your reverence does not know how cross and ill-
tempered I was. I scolded my sister Castlewood : I scolded
her children, I boxed Harry Warrington’s ears, and all
because he would not go with me to Tunbridge Wells.’
‘ But I wiU go, madam, I will ride with you with all
the pleasure in life,’ said Mx. Warrington.
‘ You see, Mr. Chaplain, w^hat good, dutiful children they
all are. ’Twas I alone who was cross and peevish. Oh,
it was cruel of me to treat them so 1 Maria, I ask your
pardon, my dear.’
‘ Sure, madam, you have done me no wrong ! ’ says
Maria to this humble suppliant.
‘ Indeed, I have, a very great wrong, child ! Because
I was weary of myself, I told you that your company
would be wearisome to me. You offered to come with
me to Tunbridge, and I rudely refused you.’
‘ Nay, ma’am, if you were sick, and my presence annoyed
you ’
‘ But it win not annoy me ! You were most kind to
say you would come. I dp, of aU things, beg, pray, entreat,
implore, command that you will come.’
My lord filled himself a glass, and sipped it. Most
VIEGINIANS H
194
THE VIRGINIANS
utterly unconscious did his lordship look. This, then, was
the meaning of the previous comedy.
‘ Anything which can give my aunt pleasure, I am sure,
will delight me,’ said Maria, trying to look as happy as
possible.
‘ You must come and stay with me, my dear, and I
promise to be good and good-humoured. My dear lord,
you will spare your sister to me ? ’
‘ Lady Maria Esmond is quite of age to judge for herself
about such a matter,’ said his lordsMp, with a bow. ‘ If
any of us can be of use to you, madam, you sure ought
to command us.’ Which sentence, being interpreted, no
doubt meant, ^ Plague take the old woman ! She is taking
Maria away in order to separate her from this young
Virginian.’
‘ Oh, Tunbridge will be delightful ! ’ sighed Lady Maria.
‘ Mr. Sampson will go and see Goody Jones for you,’
my lord continued. Harry drew pictures with his feger
on the table. "What delights had he not been speculating
on ? What w^alks, what rides, what interminable conversa*
tions, what delicious shrubberies and sweet sequestered
summer-houses, what poring over music-books, what moon-
light, what billing and codng, had he not imagined ! Yes,
the day was coming. They were aU departing — my Lady
Castlewood to her friends, Madame Bernstein to her waters
— ^and he was to be left alone with his divine charmer —
alone with her and unutterable rapture ! The thought of
the pleasure was maddeniiig. That these people were all
going away. That he was to be left to enj'oy that heaven —
to sit at the feet of that angel and kiss the hem of that
white robe. O gods ! ’twas too great bliss to be real !
‘ I knew it couldn’t be,’ thought poor Harry. ‘ I knew
something would happen to take her from me.’
* But you will ride with us to Tunbridge, nephew War-
rington, and keep us from the highwaymen,’ said Madame
de Bernstein.
Harry Warrington hoped the company did not see how
red he grew. He tried to keep his voice calm and without
tremor. Yes, he would ride with their ladyships, and he
was sure they need fear no danger. Danger ! Harry felt
he would rather like danger than not. He would slay ten
thousand highwaymen if they approached his mistress’s
coach. At least, he would ride by that coach, and now
LOVE AND LUCK
195
and again see her eyes at the window. He might not speak
to her ; but he should be near her. He should press the
blessed hand at the inn at night, and feel it reposing on
his as he led her to the carriage at morning. They would
be two whole days going to Tunbridge, and one day or
two he might stay there. Is not the poor wTetch who is
left for execution at Newgate thankful for even two or
three days of respite ?
You see, we have only indicated, we have not chosen
to describe at length, Mr. Harry Warrington’s condition,
or that utter depth of imbecihty into which the poor
young wretch was now plunged. Some boys have the
complaint of love favourably and gently. Others, when
they get the fever, are sick unto death with it ; or, re-
covering, carry the marks of the malady down with them
to the grave, or to remotest old age. I say, it is not fair
to take down a young fellow’s words when he is raging
in that delirium. Suppose he is in love with a woman
twice as old as himself, have we not all read of the young
gentleman who committed suicide in consequence of his
fatal passion for Mademoiselle Ninon de I’Enclos, w^ho
turned out to be his grandmother ? Suppose thou art
making an ass of thyself, young Harry Warrington, of
Virginia ! are there not people in England who hee-haw,
too ? Kick and alwise him, you who have never brayed ;
but bear with him, all hcmest fellow cardophagi ; long-
eared messmates, recognize a brother donkey I
‘ You will stay with us for a day or two at the Wells,’
Madame Bernstein continued. ‘ You will see us put into
our lodgings. Then you can return to Castlewood and the
partridge-shooting, and all the fine things wliich you and
my lord are to study together.’
Harry bowed an acquiescence. A whole week of heaven !
Life was not altogether a blank, then.
‘ And as there is sure to be plenty of company at the
Wells, I shall be able to present you,’ the lady graciously
added.
‘ Company ! Ah 1 I shan’t need company,’ sighed out
Harry. ‘ I mean that I shall be quite content^ in the
company of you two ladies,’ he added, eagerly; and no
doubt Mr. Will wondered at his cousin’s taste.
As this was to be the last night of cousin Harry’s present
visit to Castlewood, cousin Will suggested that he, and
m THE VIBGINIANS
his reverence, and Warrington should meet at the quarters
of the latter and make up accounts ; to which process,
Harry, being a considerable winner in his play transactions
with the two gentlemen, had no objection. Accordingly,
when the ladies retired for the night, and my lord with-
drew — as his custom was — ^to his own apartments, the three
gentlemen all found themselves assembled in Mr. Harry’s
httle room before the punch-bowl, which was Will’s usual
midnight companion.
But Will’s method of settling accounts was by producing
a couple of fresh packs of cards, and offering to submit
Harry’s debt to the proems of being doubled or acquitted.
The poor chaplain had no more ready cash than Lord
Castlewood’s younger brother. Harry Warrington wanted
to win the money of neither. Would he give pain to the
brother of his adored Maria, or allow any one of her near
kinsfolk to tax him with any want of generosity or for-
bearance ? He was ready to give them their revenge, as
the gentlemen proposed. Up to midnight he would play
with them for what stakes they chose to name. And so
they set to work, and the dice-box was rattled and the
cards shuffled and dealt.
Very likely he did not think about the cards at all.
Very likely he was thinking : — ‘ At this moment, my
beloved one is sitting with her beauteous golden looks
outspread under the fingers of her maid. Happy maid !
Now she is on her knees, the sainted creature, addressing
prayers to that Heaven which is the abode of angels like
W. Now she has sunk to rest behind her damask curtains.
Oh, Hess, bless her ! ’ ‘ You double us all round ? I will
take a card upon each of my two. Thank you, that will
do — a ten — ^now, upon the other, a queen — ^two natural
vingt-et-uns, and as you doubled us, you owe me so-and-so.’
I imagine volleys of oaths from Mr. William, and brisk
pattering of imprecations from his reverence, at the young
Virginian’s luck. He won because he did not want to win.
Fortune, that notoriously coquettish jade, came to him
because he w^as thinking of another nymph, who possibly
was as fickle. Will and the chaplain may have played
against him, solicitous constantly to increase their stakes,
and supposing that the wealthy Virginian wished to let
them recover all their losings. But this was by no means
Harry Warrington’s notion. When he was at home he
LOVE AND LUCK
197
had taken a part in scores of such games as these (whereby
we may be led to suppose that he kept many little circum-
stances of his life mum from his lady mother), and had
learned to play and pay. And as he practised fair play
towards his friends, he expected it from them in return.
‘ The luck does seem to be with me, cousin,’ he said,
in reply to some more oaths and growls of Will, " and
I am sure I do not %vant to press it ; but you don’t suppose
I am going to be such a fool as to fling it aw^ay altogether ?
I have quite a heap of your promises on paper by this
time. If w^e are to go on playing, let us have the dollars
on the table, if you please; or, if not the money — the
wrorth of it.’
‘ Alw^ays the way with you rich men,’ grumbled Will.
‘ Never lend except on security — alw^ays win because you
are rich.’
‘ Faith, cousin, you have been of late for ever flinging
my riches into my face. I have enough for my w^ants
and for my creditors.’
‘ Oh, that we could aU say as much,’ groaned the chaplain.
‘ How happy we, and how happy the duns would be !
What have we got to play against our conqueror ? There
is my new gown, Mr. Warrington. Will you set me five
pieces against it ? I have but to preach in stuff if I lose.
Stop ! I have a.Chrysostom> a Foxe’s Martyrs, a Baker’s
Chronicle, and a cow and her calf. What shall we set
against these ? ’
‘ I will bet one of cousin Will’s notes for twenty pounds,’
cried Mr. Warrington, producing one of those documents.
‘ Or I have my brown mare, and will back her not against
your honour’s notes of hand, but against ready money.’
‘ I have my horse. I wiU back my horse against you
for fifty 1 ’ bawls out Will.
Harry took the offers of both gentlemen. In the course
of ten minutes the horse and the bay mare had both
changed owners. Cousin William sw^ore more fiercely than
ever. The parson dashed his wig to the ground, and
emulated his pupil in the loudness of his objurgations.
Mr. Harry Warrington was quite calm, and not the least
elated by his triumph. They had asked him to play, and
he had played. He knew he should win. 0 beloved
slumbering angel ! he thought, am I not sure of victory
when you are kind to me ? He w^as looking out from his
198
THE VIRGINIANS
window towards the casement on the opposite side of the
court, which he knew to be hers. He had forgot about
his victims and their groans, and ill luck, ere they crossed
the court. Under yonder brilliant flickering star, behind
yonder casement where the lamp was burning faintly, was
his joy, and heart, and treasure.
CHAPTER XX
FAaLIS BESCENSUS
HiLST the good old Bishop of Cam-
bray, in his romance lately men-
tioned, described the disconsolate
condition of Calypso at the depar-
ture of Ulysses, I forget whether
he mentioned the grief’ of Calypso^s
lady’s-maid on taking leave of
Odysseus’s own gentleman. The
menials must have wept together
in the kitchen precincts whilst the
master and mistress took a last
wild embrace in the drawing-room;
they must have hung round each
other in the fore-cabin, whilst
their principals broke their hearts in the ^and-saloon.
When the bell rang for the last time, and Ulysses’s mate
bawled, ‘ Now ! any one for shore ? ’ Calypso and her female
attendant must have both w^alked over the same plank,
with beating hearts and streaming eyes ; both must have
waved pockiet-handkerchiefs (of far different value and
texture) as they stood on the quay to their friends on the
departing vessel, whilst the people on the land and the
crew crowding in the ship’s bows shouted, Hip, hip, huzzay
(or whatever may be the equivalent Greek for the saluta-
tion) to all engaged on that voyage. But the point to be
remembered is, that if Caljrpso ne 'pouvait se consoler.
Calypso’s maid ne pouvait se consoler non plus. They had
to walk the same plank of grief, and feel the same pang
of separation ; on their return home, they might not use
pocket-handkerchiefs of the same texture and value, but
FACIUS DESCENSUS
199
the tears, no doubt, were as salt and plentiful which one
shed in her marble halls, and the other poured forth in
the servants’ ditto.
Not only did Harry Warrington leave Castlewood a
victim to love, but Gumbo quitted the same premises,
a prey to the same delightful passion. His wit, accom-
plishments, good humour, his skill in dancing, cookery,
and music, had endeared him to the whole female domestic
circle. More than one of the men might be jealous of him,
but the ladies all w^ere with him. There was no such
objection to the poor black men then in England as has
obtained since among w^hite-skinned people. Theirs was
a condition not perhaps of equality, but they had a suffer-
ance and a certain grotesque sympathy from all ; and from
women, no doubt, a kindness much more generous. When
Ledyard and Park, in Blackmansland, were persecuted by
the men, did they not find the black wmmen pitiful and
kind to them ? Women are always kind towards our sex.
What (mental) negroes do they not cherish ? what (moral)
hunchbacks do they not adore ? what lepers, what idiots,
what dull drivellers, what misshapen monsters (I speak
figuratively) do they not fondle and cuddle ? Gumbo was
treated by the women as kindly as many people no better
than himself : it was only the men in the servants’ hall
who rejoiced at the Virginian lad’s departure. I should
like to see him taking leave. I should like to see Molly
housemaid stealing to the terrace-gardens in the grey
dawning to cull a wistful posy. I should like to see il^tty
kitchenmaid cutting off a thick lock of her chestnut ringlete
which she proposed to exchange for a woolly token from
young Gumbo’s pate. Of coui’se he said he was regum
'progenies^ a descendant of Ashantee kings. In Caffraria,
Connaught, and other places now inhabited by hereditary
bondsmen, there must have been vast numbers of these
potent sovereigns in former times, to judge from their
descendants now extant.
At the morning announced for Madame de Bernstein’s
departure, all the numerous domestics of Castlewood
crowded about the doors and passages, some to have a last
glimpse of her ladyship’s men, and the fascinating Gumbo,
some to take leave of her ladyship’s maid, all to waylay
the baroness and her nephew for parting-fees, which it was
the custom of that day largely to distribute among house-
200
THE VIRGINIANS
hold servants. One and the other gave liberal gratuities
to the liveried society, to the gentlemen in black and
ruffles, and to the swarm of female attendants. Castle-
wood was the home of the baroness’s youth, and as for
her honest Harry, who had not only lived at free charges
in the house, but had won horses and money — or promises
of money — ^from his cousin and the unlucky chaplain, he
was naturally of a generous turn, and felt that at this
moment he ought not to stint his benevolent disposition.
‘ My mother, I know,’ he thought, ‘ will wish me to be
liberal to all the retainers of the Esmond family.’ So he
scattered about his gold pieces to right and left, and as
if he had been as rich as Gumbo announced him to be.
There was no one who came near him but had a share
in his bounty. Erom the major-domo to the shoeblack, —
Mr. Harry had a peace-offering for them all. To the grim
housekeeper in her still-room, to the feeble old porter in
his lodge, he distributed some token of his remembrance.
When a man is in love with one woman in a family, it is
astonishing how fond he becomes of every person connected
with it. He ingratiates himself with the maids; he is
bland with the butler; he interests himsdf about the
footman ; he runs on errands for the daughters ; he gives
advice and lends money to the young son at college ; he
pats little dogs w hich he w^ould kick otherwise ; he smiles
at old stories which would make him break out in yawns,
were they uttered by any one but papa ; he drinks sweet
port wine for which he would oui^ the steward and the
whole committee of a club ; he bears even with the can-
tankerous old maiden aunt ; he beats time when darling
little Fanny performs her piece on the piano ; and smiles
when wicked, lively httle Bobby upsets the coffee over his
shirt.
Harry Warrington, in his way, and according to the
customs of that age, had for a brief time past (by which
I conclude that only for a brief time had Ms love been
declared and accepted) given to the Castlewood family all
these artless testimonies of his affection for one of them.
Cousin Will should have won back his money and welcome,
or have won as much of Harry’s own as the lad could spare.
Nevertheless, the lad, though a lover, was shrew^d, keen,
and fond of sport and fair play, and a judge of a good
horse when he saw one. Having played for and w’^on all
FACILIS DESCENSUS
201
the money which Will had, besides a great number of
Mr. Esmond’s valuable autographs, Harry was very well
pleased to win Will’s brovn horse — that very quadruped
which had nearly pushed him into the water on the first
evening of his arrival at Castlewood. He had seen the
horse’s performance often, and, in the midst of all his passion
and romance, was not sorry to be possessed of such a sound,
swift, well-bred hunter and roadster. When he had gazed
at the stars sufficiently as they shone over his mistress’s
window, and put her candle to bed, he repaired to his own
dormitory, and there, no doubt, thought of his Maria and
his horse with youthful satisfaction, and how sweet it
•would be to have one pillioned on the other, and to make
the tour of all the island on such an animal with such
a pair of white arms round his waist. He fell asleep
ruminating on these things, and meditating a million of
blessings on his Maria, in whose company he was to luxuriate
at least for a week more.
In the early morning poor Chaplain Sampson sent over
his little black mare by the hands of his groom, footman,
and gardener, who wept and bestowed a great number of
kisses on the beast’s white nose as he handed him over
to Gumbo. Gumbo and his master were both affected by
the fellow’s sensibility ; the negro servant sho'wing his
sympathy by weeping, and Harry by producing a couple
of guineas, with which he astonish^ and speedily com-
forted the chaplain’s boy. Then Gumbo and the late
groom led the beast away to the stable, having commands
to bring him round with Mr. William’s horse after breakfast,
at the hour when Madame Bernstein’s carriages were ordered.
So courteous was he to his aunt, or so grateful for her
departure, that the master of the house even made his
appearance at the morning meal, in order to take leave
of his guests. The ladies and the chaplain were present —
the only member of the family absent was Will : who,
however, left a note for his cousin, in which Will stated, in
exceedingly bad spelling, that he was obliged to go away
to Salisbury races that morning, but that he had left the
horse which his cousin won last night, and which Tom,
Mr. Will’s groom, would hand over to Mr. Warrington’s
servant. Will’s absence did not prevent the rest of the
party from drinking a dish of tea amicably, and in due
time the carriages rolled into the courtyard, the servants
H 3
THE VntGIOTANS
packed them with the baroness’s multiplied luggage, and
the moment of departure arrived.
A large open landau contained the stout baroness and
her niece ; a couple of men-servants mounting on the box
before them with pistols and blimderbusses ready in event
of a meeting with highwaymen. In another carriage were
their ladyships’ maids, and another servant in guard of
the trunks, which, vast and numerous as they were, were
as nothing compared to the enormous baggage-train accom-
panying a lady of the present time. Mr. Warrington’s
modest valises were placed in this second carriage under
the maids’ guardianship, and Mr. Gumbo proposed to ride
by the window for the chief part of the journey.
My lord, with his stepmother and Lady Fanny, accom-
panied their kinswoman to the carriage-steps, and bade
her farewell with many dutiful embraces. Her Lady Maria
followed in a riding-dress, which Harry Warrington thought
the most becoming costume in the world. A host of
servants stood around, and begged Heaven bless her lady-
ship. The baroness’s departure was known in the village,
and scores of the folks there stood waiting under the trees
outside the gates, and huzzayed and waved their hats as
the ponderous vehicles rolled away.
Gumbo was gone for Mr. Warrington’s horses, as my
lord, with his arm under his young guest’s, paced up and
down the court. ‘ I hear you carry aw^ay some of our
horses out of Castlewood ? ’ my lord said.
Harry blushed. ‘ A gentleman cannot refuse a fair game
at the cards,’ he smd. ‘ I never wanted to play, nor
would have played fm* money, had not my cousin William
forced me. As for the chaplain, it went to my heart to
win from him, but he was as eager as my cousin.’
‘ I know — know ! There is no blame to you, niy boy.
At Rome, you can’t help doing as Rome does ; and I am
very glad that you have been able to give Will a lesson.
He is mad about play — ^would gamble his coat off his
back — and I and the family have had to pay his debts
ever so many times. May I ask how much you have won
of him ? ’
‘ Well, some eighteen pieces the first day or two, and
his note for a hundred and twenty more, and the brown
horse, sixty — ^that makes nigh upon two hundred. But,
you know, cousin, all was fair, and it was even against
FACILIS DESCENSUS
203
my will that we played at all. Will ain’t a match for me,
my lord — that is the fact. Indeed he is not.’
‘ He is a match for most people, though,’ said my lord.
‘ His brown horse, I think you said ? ’
‘ Yes. His bro^n horse — Prince William, out of Con-
stitution. You don’t suppose I would set him sixty against
his bay, my lord ? ’
‘ Oh, I didn’t know. I saw Will riding out this morning,
most likely I did not remark what horse he was on. And
you won the black mare from the parson V ’
‘ For fourteen. He will mount Gumbo very W’ell. Why
does not the rascal come round with the horses ? ’ Harry’s
mind was aw^ay to lovely Maria. He longed to be trotting
by her side.
‘ When you get to Tunbridge, cousin Harry, you must
be on the look-out against sharper players than the chap-
lain and Will. There is all sorts of queer company at the
Wells.’
‘ A Virginian learns pretty early to take care of him-
self, my lord,’ says Harry, with a knowing nod.
‘ So it seems ! I recommend my sister to thee, Harry.
Although she is not a baby in years, she is as innocent
as one. Thou will see that she comes to no mischief ? ’
‘ I wiU guard her with my life, my lord ! ’ cries Harry.
‘ Thou art a brave fellow. By the way, cousin, uiiless
you are very fond of Castlewood, I would in your case
not be in a great hurry to return to this lonely, tumble-
dowm old house. I want myself to go to another place
I have, and shall scarce be back here till the partridge-
shooting. Go you and take charge of the women, of my
sister and the baroness, will you ? ’
‘ Indeed I will,’ said Harry, his heart beating with happi-
ness at the thought.
‘ And I will write thee word w^hen you shall bring my
sister back to me. Here come the horses. Have you bid
adieu to the countess and Lady Fanny ? They are kissing
their hands to you from the music-room balcony.’
Harry ran up to bid these ladies a farewell. He made
that ceremony very brief, for he was anxious to be off to
the charmer of his heart ; and came downstairs to mount
his newly-gotten steed, which Gumbo, himself astride on
the parson’s black mare, held by the rein.
There was Gumbo on the black mare, indeed, and holding
m
THE VIRGINIANS
another horse. But it was a bay horse, not a bro\\Ti — a
bay horse with broken knees — an aged, worn-out quadruped.
‘ What is this ? ’ cries Harry.
‘ Your honour’s new horse,’ says the groom, touching
his cap.
‘ This brute ? ’ exclaims the young gentleman, with one
or more of those expressions then in use in England and
Virginia. ‘ Go and bring me round Prince William —
Mr. William’s horse — ^the brown horse.’
‘ Mr. William have rode Prince William this morning
away to Salisbury races. His last words was, “ Sam,
saddle my bay horse, Cato, for Mr. Warrington this morning.
He is Mr. Warrington’s horse now. I sold him to him last
night.” And I know your honour is bountiful : you will
consider the groom.’
My lord could not help breaking into a laugh at these
words of Sam the groom, whilst Harry, for his part, indulged
in a number more of those remarks which politeness does
not admit of our inserting here.
* Mr. William said he never could think of parting with
the Prince under a hundred and twenty,’ said the groom,
looking at the young man.
Lord Castlewood only laughed the more. ‘ Will has been
too much for thee, Harry Warrington,’
‘ Too much for me, my lord ! So may a fellow with
loaded dice throw sixes, and be too much for me. I do
not call this betting, I call it ch ’
‘ Mr. Warrington ! Spare me bad words about my
brother, if you please ! Depend on it, I will take care
that you are righted. Farewell. Ride quickly, or your
coaches will be at Famham before you : ’ and waving
him an adieu, my lord entered into the house, whilst Harry
and his companion rode out of the courtyard. The young
Virginian was much too eager to rejoin the carriages and
his charmer, to remark the glances of unutterable love and
affection which Gumbo shot from his fine eyes towards
a young creature in the porter’s lodge.
When the youth w&s gone, the chaplain and my lord
sat down to finish their breakfast in peace and comfort.
The two ladies did not return to this meal.
‘ That was one of Will’s confounded rascally tricks,’ says
my lord. ‘ If our cousin breaks Will’s head, I should not
w^onder.’
FACILIS DESCENSUS
205
‘He is used to the operation, my lord, and yet,’ adds
the chaplain, with a grin, ‘when w^e were playing last
night, the colour of the horse w^as not mentioned. I could
not escape, having but one : and the black boy has ridden
off on him. The young Virginian plays like a man, to do
him justice.’
‘ He wins because he does not care about losing. I think
there can be little doubt but that he is very w^ell to do.
His mother’s law-agents are my lawyers, and they wTite
that the property is quite a principality, and grow’S richer
every year.’
‘ H it were a kingdom, I know w^hom Mr. Warrington
would make queen of it,’ said the obsequious chaplain.
‘ Who can account for taste, parson ? ’ asks his lordship,
with a sneer. ‘All men are so. The first w^oman I w^as
in love with myself was forty ; and as jealous as if she had
been fifteen. It runs in the family. Colonel Esmond (he
in scarlet and the breastplate yonder) married my grand-
mother, who was almost old enough to be his. If this lad
chooses to take out an elderly princess to Virginia, we must
not balk him.’
‘ ’Twere a consummation devoutly to be wished i ’ cries
the chaplain. ‘ Had I not best go to Tunbridge Wells
myself, my lord, and be on the spot, and ready to exercise
my sacred function in behalf of the young couple ? ’
‘ You shall have a pair of new nags, parson, if you do,’
said my lord. And with this we leave thein peaceable
over a pipe of tobacco after breakfast.
Harry was in such a haste to join the carriages that he
almost forgot to take off his hat, and acknowledge the
cheers of the Castlewnod villagers : they all liked the lad,
w^hose frank, cordial ways and honest face got him a wel-
come in most places. Legends were still extant in Castle-
wood of his grandparents, and how his grandfather, Colonel
Esmond, might have been Lord Castlewood, but wnuld not.
Old Lockwood at the gate often told of the colonel’s
gallantry in Queen Anne’s wars. His feats w^ere exag-
gerated, the behaviour of the present family was contrasted
with that of the old lord and lady : who might not have
been very popular in their time, but were better folks
than those now in possession. Lord Castlew^ood was a hard
landlord : perhaps more disliked because he w^as known
206
THE VntGINIANS
to be poor and embarrassed than because he was severe*
As for Mr. Will, nobody was fond of him. The young
gentleman had had many brawls and quarrels about the
village, had received and given broken heads, had bills in
the neighbouring towms which he could not or would not
pay : had been arraigned before magistrates for tampering
with village girls, and waylaid and cudgelled by injured
husbands, fathers, sweethearts. A hundred years ago his
character and actions might have been described at length
by the painter of manners : but the Comic Muse, nowadays,
does not lift up Molly Seagrim’s curtain ; she only indicates
the presence of some one behind it, and passes on primly,
with expressions of horror, and a fan before her eyes. The
village had heard how the young Virginian squire had
beaten Mr. Will at riding, at jumping, at shooting, and
finally, at card-playing, for everything is known ; and they
respected Harry all the more for this superiority. Above
all, they admired him on account of the reputation of
enormous wealth which Gumbo had made for his master.
This fame had travelled over the whole county, and was
preceding him at this moment on the boxes of Madame
Bernstein’s carriages, from which the valets, as they de-
scended at the inns to bait, spread astounding reports of
the young Virginian’s rank and splendour. He was a prince
in his own country. He had gold mines, diamond mines,
furs, tobaccos, — ^who knew what, or how much ? No
wonder the honest Britons cheered him and respected him
for his prosperity, as the noble-hearted fellows always do.
I am surprised city corporations did not address him, and
offer gold boxes with the freedom of the city — ^he w^as so
rich. Ah, a proud thing it is to be a Briton, and think
that there is no country where prosperity is so much
respected as in ours ; and where success receives such
constant affecting testimonials of loyalty.
So, leaving the villagers bawling, and their hats tossing
in the air, Harry spurred his sorry beast, and galloped,
with Gumbo behind him, until he came up with the cloud
of dust in the midst of which his charmer’s chariot was
enveloped. Penetrating into this cloud, he found himseK
at the window of the carriage. The Lady Maria had the
back seat to herself ; by keeping a little behind the wheels,
he could have the delight of seeing her divine eyes and
smiles. She held a finger to her Up, Madame Bernstein
FACILIS DESCENSUS
207
was already dozing on her cushions. Harry did not care
to disturb the old lady. To look at his cousin was bliss
enough for him. Tlie landscape around him might be
beautiful, but what did he heed it ? All the skies and
trees of summer were as nothing compared to yonder face :
the hedgerow birds sang no such sweet music as her sw'eet
monosyllables.
The baroness’s fat horses were accustomed to short
journeys, easy paces, and plenty of feeding ; so that, ill
as Harry Warrington w^as mounted, he could without much
difficulty keep pace with his elderly kinswoman. At two
o’clock they baited for a couple of hours for dinner.
Mr. Warrington paid the landlord generously. What price
could be too great for the pleasure which he enjoy^ in
being near his adored Maria, and having the blissful chance
of a conversation with, her, scarce interrupted by the soft
breathing of Madame de Bernstein, who, after a com-
fortable meal, indulged in an agreeable half -hour’s slumber ?
In voices soft and low, Maria and her young gentleman
talked over and over again those delicious nonsenses which
people in Harry’s condition never tire of hearing and
uttering.
They were going to a crow^ded w^atering-place, where all
sorts of beauty and fashion would be assembled ; timid
Maria was certain that amongst the young beauties, Harry
would discover some, whose charms were far more worthy
to occupy his attention, than any her homely face and
figure could boast of. By all the gods, Harry vowed, that
Venus herself could not tempt him from her side. It was
he who for his part had occasion to fear. When the young
men of fashion beheld his peerless Maria they would crowd
round her car ; they would cause her to forget the rough
and humble American lad who knew nothing of fashion or
wit, who had only a faithful heart at her service.
Maria smiles, she casts her eyes to heaven, she vows
that Harry knows nothing of the truth and fidelity of
woman ; it is his sex, on the contrary, which proverbially
is faithless, and which delights to play with poor female
hearts. A scuffle ensues ; a clatter is heard among the
knives and forks of the dessert ; a glass tumbles over and
breaks. An ‘ Oh ! ’ escapes from the innocent lips of Maria.
The disturbance has been caused by the broad cuff of
Mr. Warrington’s coat, which has been stretched across
2D8
THE VIRGINIANS
the table to seize Lady Maria’s hand, and has upset the
wine-glass in so doing. Surely nothing could be more
natural, or indeed necessary, than that Harry, upon heariag
his sex’s honour impeached, should seize upon his fair
accuser’s hand, and vow eternal fidelity upon those charming
fingers ?
What a part they play, or used to play, in love-making,
those hands ! How quaintly they are squeezed at that
period of life ! How they are pushed into conversation !
what absurd vows and protests are palmed off by their
aid ! What good can there be in puUing and pressing
a thumb and four fingers ? I fancy I see Alexis laugh,
who is haply reading this page by the side of Araminta.
To talk about thumbs indeed i . . , Maria looks round,
for her part, to see if Madame Bernstein has been awakened
by the crash of the glass ; but the old lady slumbers quite
calmly in her arm-chair, so her niece thinks there can be
no harm in yielding to Bbrrry’s gentle pressure.
The horses are put to : Paradise is over — ^at least until
the next occasion. When my landlord enters with the bill,
Harry is standing quite at a distance from his cousin,
looking from the window at the cavalcade gathering below.
Madame Bernstein wakes up from her slumber, smiling
and quite unconscious. With what profound care and
reverential politeness Mr. Warrington hands his aunt to
her carriage ! how demure and simple looks Lady Maria
as she follows ! Away go the carriages, in the midst of
a profoundly bowing landlord and waiters ; of country folks
gathered round the blazing mn-sign ; of shopmen gazing
from their homely little doors ; of boys and market-folks
under the colonnade of the old town haU ; of loungers
along the gabled street. ‘ It is the famous Baroness Bem-
stem. That is she, the old lady in the capuchin. It is
the rich young American who is just come from Virginia,
and is worth millions and millions. Well, sure, he might
have a better horse.’ The cavalcade disappears, and the
little town lapses into its usual quiet. The landlord goes
back to Ms friends at the club, to teU how the great folks
are going to sleep at the ‘ Bush at Eamham, to-night.
The inn-dinner had been plentiful, and aU the three
guests of the inn had done justice to the good cheer.
Harry had the appetite natural to his period of life. Maria
and her aunt were also not indifferent to a good dinner :
FACILIS DESCENSUS
209
Madame Bernstein had had a comfortable nap after hers,
which had no doubt helped her to bear all the good things
of the meal — ^the meat pies, and the fruit pies, and the
strong ale, and the heady port wane. She reclined at ease
on her seat of the landau, and looked back affably, and
smiled at Harry and exchanged a little talk with him as
he rode by the carriage side. But what ailed the beloved
being who sat with her back to the horses ? Her com-
plexion, which was exceedingly fair, was further ornamented
with a pair of red cheeks w’luch Harry took to be natural
roses. (You see, madam, that your surmises regarding the
Lady Maria’s conduct wdth her cousin are quite wTong and
uncharitable, and that the timid lad had made no such
experiments as you suppose, in order to ascertain wdiether
the roses were real or artificial. A kiss indeed ! I blush
to think you should imagine that the present wTiter could
indicate anything so shocking !) Maria’s bright red cheeks,
I say still, continued to blush as it seemed with a strange
metallic bloom ; but the rest of her face, which had used
to rival the lily in whiteness, became of a jonquil colour.
Her eyes stared round with a ghastly expression. Harry
was alarmed at the agony depicted in the charmer’s counte-
nance ; which not only exhibited pain, but was exceedingly
unbecoming. Madame Bernstein also at length remarked
her niece’s indisposition, and asked her if sitting backwards
in the carriage made her ill, which poor Maria confessed
to be the fact. On this, the elder lady was forced to make
room for her niece on her own side, and, in the course
of the drive to Famham, uttered many gruff, disagreeable,
sarcastic remarks to her fellow traveller, indicating her
great displeasure that Maria should be so impertinent as
to be ill on the first day of a journey.
When they reached the ‘ Bush ’ Inn at Farnham, under
which name a famous inn has stood in Famham town for
these three hundred years — ^the dear invalid retired wath
her maid to her bedroom : scarcely glancing a j)iteous look
at Harry as she retreated, and leaving the lad’s mind in
a strange confusion of ^smay and sympathy. Those
yellow, yellow cheeks, those livid wTinkled eydids, that
ghastly red — ^how ill his blessed Maria looked ! And not
only how ill, but how — ^away, horrible thought, unmanly
suspicion ! He tried to shut the idea out from his mind.
He had little appetite for supper, though the jolly baronet
210
THE VntGmANS
partook of that repast as if she had had no dinner ; and
certainly as if she had no sympathy with her invalid niece.
She sent her major-domo to see if Lady Maria would
have anything from the table. The servant brought back
word that her ladyship was still very unwell, and declined
any refreshment.
‘ I hope she intends to be weU to-morrow morning,’
cried Milame Bernstein, rapping her little hand on the
table. * I hate people to be Dl in an inn, or on a journey.
Will you play piquet with me, Harry ? ’
Harry was happy to be able to play piquet with his
aunt. ‘ That absurd Maria I ’ says Madame Bernstein,
drinking from a great glass of negus, ‘ she takes liberties
with herself. She never had a good constitution. She is
forty-one years old. AU her upper teeth are false, and she
can’t eat with them. Thank Heaven, I have stiQ got
every tooth in my head. How clumsily you deal, child 1 ’
‘ Beal clumsily,’ indeed I Had a dentist been extracting
Harry’s own grinders at that moment, would he have been
expected to mind his cards, and deal them neatly ? When
a man is laid on the rack at the inquisition, is it natural
that he should smile and speak politely and coherently to
the grave, quiet inquisitor ? Beyond that little question
regarding the cards, Harry’s inquisitor did not show the
small^t disturbance. Her face indicated neither surprisci
nor triumph, nor cruelty. Madame Bernstein did not give
one more stab to her niece that night : but she played at
cards, and prattled with Harry, indulging in her favourite
talk about old times, and p^ing from him with great
cordiality and good humour. Very likely he did not heed
her stories. Very likely other thoughts occupied his mind.
Maria is forty-one years old, Maria has false — oh, horrible,
horrible I Has she a false eye ? Has she false hair ? Has
she a wooden leg ? I envy not that boy’s dreams that
night.
Madame ]^mstein, in the morning, said she had slept
as sound as* a top. She had no remorse, that was clear.
(Some folks are happy and easy in mind when their victim
is stabbed and done for.) Lady Maria made her appearance
at the breakfast table, too. Her ladyship’s indisposition
was fortunately over : her aunt congratulated her affec-
tionately on her good looks. She sat down to her break-
fast. She looked appealingly in Harry’s face. He remarked.
FACILIS DESCENSUS
211
with his usual brilliancy and originality, that he w^as very
glad her ladyship was better. Why, at the tone of his
voice, did she start, and again gaze at him with frightened
eyes ? There sat the chief inquisitor, smiling, perfectly
calm, eating ham and muffins. O poor, writhing, rack-
rent victim ! O stony inquisitor [ O Baroness Bernstein !
It was cruel ! cruel !
Round about Farnham the hops were gloriously green
in the sunshine, and the carriages drove through the richest,
most beautiful country. Maria insisted upon taking her
old seat. She thanked her dear aunt. It would not in
the least incommode her now. She gazed, as she had done
yesterday, in the face of the young knight riding by the
carriage side. She looked for those answering signals which
used to be lighted up in yonder two window^s, and told
that love was burning within. She smiled gently at him,
to which token of regard he tried to answer with a sickly
grin of recognition. Miserable youth ! Those were not
false teeth he saw when she smiled. He thought they
were, and they tore and lacerated him.
And so the day sped on — sunshiny and brilliant overhead,
but all over clouds for Harry and Maria. He saw nothing :
he thought of Virginia : he remembered how he had
been in love with Parson Broadbent’s daughter at James
Town, and how quickly that business had ended- He
longed vaguely to be at home again. A plague on all
these cold-hearted English relations 1 Did they not all
mean to trick him ? Were they not all scheming against
him ? Had not that confounded Will cheated him about
the horse ?
At this very juncture, Maria gave a scream so loud
and shrill, that Madame Bernstein woke, that the coachman
puUed his horses up, and the footman beside him sprang
down from his box in a panic.
‘ Let me out ! let me out ! ’ screamed Maria. ‘ Let
me go to him ! let me go to him ! ’
‘ What is it ? ’ asked the baroness.
It was that Will’s horse had come down on his knees
and nose, had sent his rider over his head, and Mr. Harry,
who ought to have known better, was lying on his ovm
face quite motionless.
Gumbo, who had been dallying with the maids of the
second carriage, clattered up, and mingled his howls with
212
THE VIEGINr ANS
Lady Marians lamentations. Madame Bernstein descended
from her landau, and came slowly up, trembling a good deal.
‘ He is dead — ^he is dead I ’ sobbed Maria.
‘ Don’t be a goose, Maria ! ’ her aunt said. ‘ Ring at
that gate, some one ! ’
WDl’s horse had gathered himself up and stood per-
fectly quiet after his feat : but his late rider gave not
the slightest sign of life.
CHAPTER XXI
SAMARITANS
EST any tender-
hearted
reader should
be in alarm
for Mr. Harry
Warrington’s
safety, and
fancy that
his broken-
kneed horse
had carried
him a 1 1 o-
gether out of
this life and
history, let us
set her mind
easy at the
beginning of
this chapter,
by assuring her that nothing very serious has happened.
How can we afford to kill off our heroes, when they are
scarcely out of their teens, and we have not reached the
age of manhood of the story ? We are in mourning already
for one of our Virginians, who has come to grief in America ;
surely we cannot kiU off the other in England ? No, no.
Heroes are not dispatched with such hurry and violence
unless there is a cogent reason for making away with
them. Were a gentleman to perish every time a horse
SAMARITANS
215
came down with him, not only the hero, but the author
of this chronicle would have gone underground, whereas
the former is but sprawling outside it, and will be brought
to life again as soon as he has been carried into the house
where Madame de Bernstein’s servants have rung the bell.
And to convince you that at least this youngest of the
Virginians is still alive, here is an authentic copy of a letter
from the lady into whose house he was taken after his fall
from Mr. Will’s brute of a broken-kneed horse, and in
w’hom he appears to have found a kind friend.
TO MRS. ESMOND WARRINGTON, OF CASTLEWOOD,
AT HER HOUSE AT RICHMOND, IN VIRGINIA.
If Mrs. Esmond Warrington, of Virginia, can call to mind twenty-
three years ago, when Miss Rachel Esmond was at Kensington
Boarding School, she may perhaps remember Miss Molly Benson,
her class-mate, who has forgotten all the little quarrels which they
used to have together (in which Miss Molly was very often in the
wrong), and only remembers the generous, high-spirited, sprightly
Miss Esmond, the Princess Pocahontas, to whom so many of our
schoolfellows paid court.
Dear madam 1 I can never forget that you were dear Rachel
once upon a time, as I was your dearest Molly. Though we parted
not very good friends when you went home to Virginia, yet you
know how fond we once were. I still, Rachel, have the gold etui your
papa gave me when he came to our speech-day at Kensington, and
we two performed the quarrel of Brutus and Cassius out of Shake-
speare ; and ’twas only yesterday morning I was dreaming that
we were both called up to say our lesson before the awful Miss
Hardwood, and that I did not know it, and that as usual Miss Rachel
Esmond went above me. How well remembered those old days
are ! How young we grow as we think of them ! I remember
our walks and our exercises, our good king and queen as they walked
in Kensington Gardens, and their Court following them, whilst we
of Miss Hardwood’s school curtsied in a row. I can tell still what
we had for dinner on each day of the week, and point to the place
where your garden was, which was always so much better kept
than mine. So was Miss Esmond’s chest of drawers a model of
neatness, whilst mine were in a sad condition. Do you remember
how we used to tell stories in the dormitory, and Madame Hibou,
the French governess, would come out of bed and interrupt us with
her hooting ? Have you forgot the poor dancing master, who told
us he had been waylaid by assassins, but who w^as beaten, it appears,
by my lord your brother’s footmen ? My dear, your cousin, the lady
Maria Esmond (her papa was, I think, but Viscount Castlewood in
those times), has just been on a visit to this house, where you may
m
THE VIEGINIANS
be sure I did not recall those sad times to her remembrance, about
which I am now chattering to Mrs. Esmond.
Her ladyship has been staying here, and another relative of yours,
the Baroness of Bernstein, and the two ladies are both gone on to
Tunbridge Wells ; but another and dearer relative still remains in
my house, and is sound asleep, I trust, in the very next room, and
the name of this gentleman is Mr. Henry Esmond Warrington.
Now, do you understand how you come to hear from an old friend ?
Do not be alarmed, dear madam ! I know you are thinking at
this moment, ‘ My boy is ill. That is why Miss Molly Benson writes
to me.’ No, my dear; IVIr. Warrington was ill yesterday, but
to-day he is very comfortable ; and our doctor, who is no less
a person than my dear husband, Colonel Lambert, has blooded
him, has set his shoulder, which was dislocated, and pronounces
that in two days more Mr. Warrington will be quite ready to take
the road.
I fear, I and my girls are sorry that he is so soon tp be well.
Yesterday evening, as we were at tea, there came a great ringing
at our gate, which disturbed us all, as the bell very sddom sounck
in this quiet place, unless a passing beggar pulls it for charity ;
and the servants, running out, returned with the news, that a young
gentleman, who had a fall from his horse, was lying lifeless on the
road, surrounded by the friends in whose company he was travelling.
At this, my colonel (who is sure the most Samaritan of men !)
hastens away, to see ho^ he can serve the fallen traveller, and
presently, with the aid of the servants, and followed by two ladies,
brings into the bouse such a pale, lifeless, beautiful young man !
Ah, my dear, how I rejoice to think that your child has found shel-
ter and succour under my roof ! that my husband has saved him
from pain and fever, and has been the means of restoring him to
you and health ! We shall be friends again , pow, shall we not ?
I was very ill last year, and ’twas even thought I should die. Do
you know, that I often thought of you then, and how you had
parted from me in anger so many years ago ? I began then a foolish
note to you, which I was too sick to finish, to tell you that if I went
the way appointed for us aU, I should wish to leave the world in
charity with every single being I had known in it.
Your cousin, the Right Honourable Lady Maria Esmond, showed
a great deal of maternal tenderness and concern for her young
kinsman after his accident. I am sure she hath a kiud heart.
The Baroness de Bernstein, who is of an advanced age, could not
be expected to feel so keenly as v}e young people ; but was, never-
theless, very much moved and interested until Mr. Warrington
was restored to consciousness, when she said she was anxious to
get on towards Tunbridge, whither she was bound, and was afraid
of aU things to lie in a place where there was no doctor at hand.
My Aesculapius laughingly said, he would not offer to attend upon
a lady of quality, ibough he would answer for his young patient.
Inde^ the colonel, during his campaigns, has had plenty of practice
SAMARITANS
217
in accidents of this nature, and I am certain, were we to call in ail the
faculty for twenty miles round, 3Ir. Warrington could get no better
treatment. So, leaving the young gentleman to the care of me
and my daughters, the baroness and her ladyship took their leave of
us, the latter very loath to go. When he is well enough, my colonel
will ride with him as far as Westerham, but on his oum horses, where
an old army-comrade of Mr. Lambert’s resides. And, as this
letter will not take the post for Falmouth until, by God’s blessing,
your son is well and perfectly restored, you need be under no sort
of alarm for him whilst under the roof of,
Madam,
Your affectionate and humble servant,
IVIary Lambert.
P.S. Thursday. „ „ ?
I am glad to hear (Mr. Warrington’s coloured gentleman hath
informed our people of the gratifying circumstance) that Providence
hath blessed Mrs. Esmond with such vast wealth, and with an heir
so likely to do credit to it. Our present means are amply sufficient,
but will be small when divided amongst om: survivors ! Ah, dear
madam ! I have heard of your calamity of last year. Though
the colonel and I have reared many children (five), we have lost
two, and a mother" s heart can feel for yoms ! I own to you, mine
yearned to your boy to-day, when (in a manner inexpressibly
affecting to me and Mr. Lambert) he mentioned his dear brother.
’Tis impossible to see your son, and not to love and regard him.
I am thankful that it has been our lot to succour him in his trouble,
and that in receiving the stranger within our gates, we should be
giving hospitality to the son of an old friend.
Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men’s
faces, which is honoured almost wherever presented. Harry
Warrington’s countenance was so stamped in his youth.
His eyes were so bright, his cheek so red and healthy,
his look so frank and open, that almost all who beheld
him, nay, even those who cheated him, trusted him. Never-
theless, as we have hinted, the lad was by no means the
artless stripling he seemed to be. He was knowing enough
with all his blushing cheeks ; perhaps more wily and wary
than he grew to be in after-age. Sure, a shrewd and
generous man (who has led an honest life and has no secret
blushes for his conscience) grows simpler as he grows
older ; arrives at his sum of right by more rapid processes
of calculation ; learns to eliminate false arguments more
readily, and hits the mark of truth with less previous
trouble of aiming and disturbance of mind. Or is it only
a senile delusion, that some of our vanities are cured
218
THE VIRGINIAlSrS
with our growing years, and that we become more just
in our perceptions of our own and our neighbours’ short-
comings ? . . . I would humbly suggest that young people,
though they look prettier, have larger eyes, and not near
so many wirinkles about their eyelids, are often as artful
as some of their elders. What little monsters of cunning
your frank schoolboys are ! How they cheat mamma !
how they hoodwink papa ! how they humbug the house-
keeper ! how they cringe to the big boy for whom they
fag at school ! wkat a long lie and five years’ hypocrisy
and flattery is their conduct towards Dr. Birch 1 And
the little boys’ sisters ? Are they any better, and is it
only after they come out in the world that the little darlings
learn a trick or two ?
You may see, by the above letter of Mrs. Lambert,
that she, like all gocni women (and, indeed, almost all bad
women), was a sentimental person ; and, as she looked
at Harry Warrington laid in her best bed, after the colonel
had bled him and clapped in his shoulder, as holding by
her husband’s hand she beheld the lad in a sweet slumber,
murmuring a faint inarticulate word or two in his sleep,
a faint blush quivering on his cheek, she owned he was
a pretty lad indeed, and confessed with a sort of compunc-
tion that neither of her two boys — Jack who was at 0:rford,
and Charles who was Just gone back to school after the
Bartlemytide holidays — w^as half so handsome as the
Virginian. What a good figure the boy had, and when
papa bled him, his arm was as white as any lady’s 1
‘ Yes, as you say, Jack might have been as handsome
but for the smfebll-pox : and as for Charley ’ ‘ Always
took after his papa, my dear Molly,’ said the colonel,
looking at his own honest face in a little looking-glass with
a cut border and a japanned frame, by which the chief
guests of the worthy gentleman and l^y had surveyed
their patches and powder, or shaved their hospitable
beards.
‘ Did 1 say so, my love ? ’ whispered Mrs. Lambert,
looking rather scared.
‘ No ; but you thought so, Mrs. Lambert.’
‘ How’' can you tell one’s thoughts so, Martin ? ’ asks
the lady.
* Because I am a conjurer, and because you tell them
yourself, my dear,’ answered her husband. ‘Don’t be
SAMARITANS
219
frightened ; he won’t wake after that draught I gave him.
Because you never see a young fellow but you are comparing
him with your own. Because you never hear of one but
you are thinking which of our girls he shall fall in love
with and marry.’
‘ Don’t be foolish, sir,’ says the lady, putting a hand up
fco the colonel’s lips. They have softly trodden out of
their guest’s bedchamber by this time, and are in the
adjoining dressing-closet, a snug little wainscoted room
looking over gardens, with India curtains, more Japan
chests and cabinets, a treasure of china, and a most refresh-
ing odour of fresh lavender.
‘ You can’t deny it, Mrs. Lambert,’ the colonel resumes ;
‘ as you were looking at the young gentleman just
now, you %vere thinking to yourself which of my girls
will he marry ? Shall it be Theo, or shall it be Hester ?
And then you thought of Lucy who was at boarding-
school.’
‘ There is no keeping anything from you, Martin Lambert,’
sighs the wife.
‘ There is no keeping it out of your eyes, my dear. What
is this burning desire all you women have for selling and
marrying your daughters ? We men don’t wish to part
with ’em. I am sure, for my part, I should not like yonder
young fehow half as weh if I thought he intended to
carry one of my darlings away, with him.’
‘ Sure, Martin, I have been so happy mysetf,’ says the
fond wife and mother, looking at her husband with her
very best eyes, ‘ that I must wish my girls to do as I have
done, and be happy, too ! ’
‘ Then you think good husbands are common, Mrs.
Lambert, and that you may walk any day into the road
before the house and find one shot out at the gate like
a sack of coals ? ’
‘ Wasn’t it providential, sir, that this young gentleman
should be thrown over his horse’s head at our very gate,
and that he should turn out to be the son of my old school-
fellow and friend ? ’ asked the vfife. ‘ There is something
more than accident in such cases, depend upon that,
Mr. Lambert ! ’
‘ And this was the stranger you saw in the candle three
nights running, I suppose ? ’
‘ And in the fire, too, sir ; twice a coal jumped out close
220
THE VIRGINIANS
by Theo. You may sneer, sir, but these things are not
to be despised. Did I not see you distinctly coming back
from Minorca, and dream of you at the very day and hour
when you were wounded in Gotland ? ’
‘ How many times have you seen me wounded, when
I had not a scratch, my dear ? How many times have
you seen me ill when I had no sort of hurt ? You are
always prophesying, and ’twere very hard on you if you
were not sometimes right. Come ! Let us leave our
guest asleep comfortably, and go down and give the girls
their French lesson,*
So saying, the honest gentleman put his wife’s arm under
his, and they descended together the broad oak staircase
of the comfortable old hall, round which hung the effigies
of many foregone Lamberts, worthy magistrates, soldiers,
country gentlemen, as was the colonel whose acquaintance
we have just made. The colonel was a gentleman of
pleasant, waggish humour. The French lesson which he
and his daughters coimed together was a scene out of
Monsieur Moliere’s comedy of Tartuffe, and papa was pleased
to be very facetious with Miss Theo, by calling her madam,
and by treating her with a great deal of mock respect
and ceremony. The girls read together with their father
a scene or two of his favourite author (nor were they less
modest in those days, though their tongues were a little
more free), and papa was particularly arch and funny as
he read from Orgon’s part in that celebrated play ;
Orgon. Or sus, nous voila bien. J’ai, Mariane, en vous
Reconnu de tout temps un esprit assez doux,
Et de tout temps aussi vous m’avez ete chdre.
Mabiank Je suis fort redevable a cet amour de pere.
Orgon. Fort bien. Que dites-vous de Tartuffe, notre bote ?
Mabianb. Qui t Moi ?
Orgon. Vous. Voyez bien comme vous repondrez.
Mabiank H61as ! J’en dirai, moi, tout ce que vous voudrez !
(Madmoisdle Mariam laughs and blushes in, s'pite of hersdf, whilst
reading this Urn,)
Orgon. Cf est parler sagement. Dites-moi done, ma fille,
Qu’en toute sa personne un haut merite brille,
Qu’il touche votre coeur, et qu’il vous seroit doux
De le voir par mon choix devenir votre 6poux !
‘ Have we not read the scene prettily, Elmire ? ’ says
the colond, laughing, and turning round to his wife.
SAMARITANS
221
Elmira prodigiously admired Orgon’s reading, and so
did his daughters, and almost everything besides which
Mr. Lambert said or did. Canst thou, 0 friendly reader,
count upon the fidelity of an artless and tender heart or
two, and reckon among the blessings which Heaven hath
bestowed on thee the love of faithful women ? Purify
thine own heart, and try to make it w’orthy theirs. On
thy knees, on thy knees, give thanks for the blessing
awarded thee ! AR the prizes of life are nothing com-
pared to that one. All the rewards of ambition, wealth,
pleasure, only vanity and disappointment — grasped at
greedily and fought for fiercely, and, over and over again,
found worthless by the weary winners. But love seems
to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take
it with us past the grave. Bo we not still give it to those
who have left us ? May we not hope that they feel it
for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond
bosoms, when we also are gone ?
And whence, or how, or why, pray, this sermon ? You
see I know more about this Lambert family than you
do to whom I am just presenting them : as how should
you who never heard of them before ? You may not like
my friends ; very few people do like strangers to whom
they are presented with an outrageous flourish of praises
on the part of the introducer. You say (quite naturally)
what ? Is this all ? Are these " the people he is m fond
of ? Why, the girl’s not a beauty — ^the mother m good-
natured, and may have been good-looking onoe, but she
has no trace of it now — and as for the father, he is quite
an ordinary man. Granted : but don’t you acknowledge
that the sight of an honest man, with an honest, loving
wife by his side, and surrounded by loving and obedient
children, presents something very sweet and aiffecting to
you ? If you are made acquainted with such a person,
and see the eager kindness of the fond faces round about
him, and that pleasant confidence and affection which
beams from his own, do you mean to say you are not touched
and gratified ? If you happen to stay in such a man’s
house, and at morning or evening see him and his children
and domestics gather^ together in a certain Name, do you
not join humbly in the petitions of those servants, and
close them with a reverent Amen ? That first night of
his stay at Oakhurst, Harry Warrington, who had had
222
THE VIRGINIANS
a sleeping potion, and was awake sometimes rather
feverish, thought he heard the Evening Hymn, and that his
dearest brother George was singing it at home, in which
delusion the patient went off again to sleep.
CHAPTER XXII
IN HOSPITAL
INKING into a sweet
slumber, and lulled
by those harmoni-
ous sounds, our
I young patient
passed a night of
pleasant uncon-
sciousness, and
awoke in the morn-
ing to find a sum-
mer sun streaming
in at the window,
and his kind host
and hostess smiling
at his bed-curtains.
He was ravenously
hungry, and his
doctor permitted
him straightway to partake of a mess of chicken, which
the doctor’s wife told him had been prepared by the hands
of one of her daughters.
One of her daughters ? A faint image of a young
person — of two young persons — with red cheeks and black
waving locks, smiling round his couch, and suddenly
departing thence, soon after he had come to himself,
arose in the young man’s mind. Then, then, there returned
the remembrance of a female — ^lovely, it is true, but more
elderly — certainly considerably older — ^and with f
0 horror and remorse! He w’rithed with anguish, as
a certain recollection crossed him. An immense gulf
of time gaped between him and the past. How long
w'as it since he had heard that those pearls were arti-
IN HOSPITAL
223
ficial, — ^that those golden locks were only pinchbeck ?
A long, long time ago, when he was a boy, an inno-
cent boy. Now he was a man, — quite an old man. He
had been bled copiously ; he had a little fever ; he had
had nothing to eat for very many hours ; he had had
a sleeping-draught, and a long, deep slumber after.
‘ What is it, my dear child ? ’ cries kind Mrs. Lambert,
as he started.
‘ Nothing, madam ; a twinge in my shoulder,’ said the
lad. ‘ I speak to my host and hostess ? Sure you have
been very kind to me.’
‘ We are old friends, Mr. Warrington, My husband,
Colonel Lambert, knew your father, and I and your mamma
were schoolgirls together at Kensington. You w’ere no
stranger to us when your aunt and cousin told us who
you were.’
‘ Are they here ? ’ asked Harry, looking a little blank.
‘ They must have lain at Tunbridge Wells last night.
They sent a horseman from Reigate yesterday for new’s
of you.’
‘ Ah I I remember,’ says Harry, looking at his bandaged
arm.
‘ I have made a good cure of you, Mr. Warrington.
And now Mrs. Lamtert and the cook must take charge
of you.’
‘ Nay ; Theo prepared the chicken and rice, Mr. Lambert,’
said the lady. ‘ Will Mr. Warrington get up aft^r he has
had his breakfast ? We will send your valet to you.’
‘ If howling proves fidelity, your man must be a most
fond, attached creature,’ says Mr. Lambert.
‘ He let your baggage travel off after all in your aunt’s
carriage,’ said Mrs. Lambert. ‘ You must wear my hus-
band’s linen, which, I dare say, is not so fine as yours.’
‘ Pish, my dear ! my shirts are good shirts enough for
any Christian,’ cries the colonel.
‘ They are Theo’s and Hester’s work,’ says mamma.
At which her husband arches his eyebrows and looks at
her. ‘And Theo hath ripped and sewed your sleeve to
make it quite comfortable for your shoulder,’ the lady
added.
‘ What beautiful roses ! ’ cries Harry, looking at a fine
china vase full of them that stood on the toilet-table under
the japan-framed glass.
224
THE VIRGINIANS
‘My daughter Theo cut them this morning. Well,
Mr. Lambert ? She did cut them ! ’
I suppose the colonel was thinking that his wife introduced
Theo too much into the conversation, and trod on Mrs.
Lambert’s slipper, or pulled her robe, or otherwise nudged
her into a sense of propriety.
‘ And I fancied I heard some one singing the Evening
Hymn very sweetly last night — or was it oSy a dream? ’
asked the young patient.
‘ Theo again, Mr. Warrington ! ’ said the colonel, laughing.
‘ My servants said your negro man began to sing it in the
kitchen as if he was a church organ.’
‘ Our people sing it at home, sir. My grandpapa used
to love it very much. His wife’s father was a great friend
of good Bishop Ken who wrote it ; and — ^and my dear
brother used to love it too,’ said the boy, his voice dropping.
It was then, I suppose, that Mrs. Lambert felt inclined
to give the boy a lass. His little accident, illness, and
recovery, the kindness of the people round about him, had
softened Harry Warrington’s heart, and opened it to better
influences than theme which had been brought to bear
on it for some six weeks past. He was breathing a purer
air than that tainted atmosphere of selfishness, and
worldliness, and corruption into w^hich he had been plunged
since his arrival in England. Sometimes the young man’s
fate, or choice, or weakness, leads him into the fellowship
of the giddy and vain ; happy he, whose lot makes him
acquainted with the wi^r company, whose lamps are
trimmed, and whose pure hearts keep modest w^atch.
The pleased matron left her young patient devouring
Miss Theo’s mess of rice and chicken, and the colonel
seated by the lad’s bedside. Gratitude to his hospitable
entertainers, and contentment after a comfortable meal,
caused in Mr. Warrington a very pleasant condition of
mind and body. He was ready to talk now more freely
than usually was his custom ; for, unless excited by a
strong interest or emotion, the young man was commonly
taciturn and cautious in his converse with his fellows,
and was by no means of an imaginative turn. Of books
our youth had been but a very remiss student, nor were
his remarks on such simple works as he had read, very
profound or valuable ; but regarding dogs, horses, and the
ordinary business of life, he was a far better critic ; and.
IN HOSPITAL
225
with any person interested in such subjects, conversed on
them freely enough.
Harry’s host, who had considerable shrewdness, and
experience of books, and cattle, and men, was pretty
soon able to take the measure of his young guest in the
talk which they now had together. It was now, for the
first time, the Virginian learned that Mrs. Lambert had
been an early friend of his mother’s, and that the colonel’s
own father had served with Harry’s grandfather. Colonel
Esmond, in the famous wars of Queen Anne. He found
himseK in a friend’s country. He was soon at ease with his
honest host, whose manners were quite simple and cordial,
and who looked and seemed perfectly a gentleman, though
he wore a plain fustian coat, and a waistcoat without
a particle of lace.
‘ My boys are both away,’ said Harry’s host, ‘ or they
would have shown you the country when you got up,
Mr. Warrington. Now you can only have the company of
my wife and her daughters. Mrs. Lambert hath told you
already about one of them, Theo, our eldest, w^ho made
your broth, who out your roses, and who mended your
coat. She is not such a wonder as her mother imagines
her to be : but little Theo is a smart little housekeeper,
and a very good and cheerful lass, though her father
says it.’
‘ It is very kind cnf Miss Lambert to take so much care
for me,’ says the young patient.
‘ She is no kinder to you than to any other mortal, and
doth but her duty.’ Here the colonel smiled. ‘ I laugh
at their mother for praising our children,’ he said, ‘ and
I think I am as foolish about them myself. The truth is,
God hath given us very good and dutiful children, and
I see no reason why I should disguise my thankfulness for
such a blessing. You have never a sister, I think ? ’
‘ No, sir, I am alone now,’ Mr. Warrington said.
" Aye, truly, I ask your pardon for my thoughtlessness.
Your man hath told our people what befell last year.
I served with Braddock in Scotland ; and hope he mended
before he died. A wild fellow, sir, but there was a fund
of truth about the man, and no little kindness under his
rough swaggering manner. Your black fellow talks very
freely about his master and his affairs. I suppose you
permit him these freedoms as he rescued you ’
VIEGINIANS I
226
THE VmOINIANS
‘ Rescued mt ? * cries Mr. Warrington.
‘ From ever so many Indians on that very expedition.
My Molly and I did not know we were going to entertain
so prodigiously wealthy a gentleman. He saith that half
Virginia belongs to you ; but if the whole of North America
were yours, we could but give you our best.’
‘Those negro boys, sir, lie like the father of all lies.
They think it is for our honour to represent us as ten times
as rich as we are. My mother has what would be a vast
estate in England, and is a very good one at home. We
are as well off as most of our neighbours, sir, but no better ;
and all our splendour is in Mr. Gumbo’s foolish imagination.
He never rescued me from an Indian in his life, and would
run away at the sight of one, as my poor brother’s boy
did on that fatal day when he feU.’
‘ The bravest man will do so at unlucky times,’ said the
colonel. ‘ I myself saw the best troops in the world
run at Preston, before a ragged mob of Highland savages.’
‘That was ^cause the Highlanders fought for a good
cause, sir.’
‘ Do you think,’ asks Harry’s host, ‘ that the French
Indians had the good cause in the fight of last year ? ’
‘ The scoundrels ! I would have the scalp of every
murderous redskin among ’em ! ’ cried Harry, clenching
his fist. ‘They were robbing and invading the British
territories, too. But the Highlanders w^ere fighting for
their king.’
‘ We, on our side, w’^ere fighting for our king ; and we
ended by winning battle,’ said the colonel, laughing.
‘ Ah 1 ’ cried Harry ; ‘ if his royal highness the prince
had not turned back at Derby, your king and mine, now,
would be his Majesty King James the Third ! ’
‘ Who made such a Tory of you, Mr. Warrington ? ’
asked Lambert.
‘ Nay, sir, the Esmonds were always loyal ! ’ answered
the youth. ‘ Had we lived at home, and twenty years
sooner, brother and I often and often agreed that our
h^ds would have been in danger. We certainly would have
staked them for the king’s cause.’
‘ Yours is better on your shoulders than on a pole at
Temple Bar. I have seen them there, and they don’t
look very pleasant, Mr, Warrington.’
‘ I shall take off my hat and salute them, whenever
IN HOSPITAL
227
I pass the gate/ cried the young man, ‘ if the king and the
whole Court are standing by ! ’
^ I doubt whether your relative, my Lord Castlewood,
is as stanch a supporter of the king over the water," said
Colonel Lambert, smiling : ‘ or your aunt, the Baroness
of Bernstein, who left you in our charge. Whatever her
old partialities may have been, she has repented of them ;
she has rallied to our side, landed her nephews in the House-
hold, and looks to find a suitable match for her nieces.
If you have Tory opinions, Mr. Warrington, take an old
soldier’s advice, and keep them to yourself."
‘ Why, sir, I do not think that you will betray me I "
said the boy.
‘ Not I, but others might. You did not talk in this
way at Castlewood ? I mean the old Castlewood which
you have just come from.’
‘ I might be safe amongst my ovm kinsmen, surely,
sir ? ’ cried Harry.
‘ Doubtless. I would not say no. But a man’s owm
kinsmen can play him slippery tricks at times, and he
finds himself none the better for trusting them. I mean
no offence to you or any of your family ; but lackeys
have ears as well as their masters, and they carry about
all sorts of stories. For instance, your black fellow is
ready to teU all he knows about you, and a great deal
more besides, as it would appear."
‘ Hath he told about the broken-kneed horse ? " cried
out Harry, turning very red.
‘ To say truth, my groom seemed to know something
of the story, and said it was a shame a gentleman should
sell another such a brute ; let alone a cousin. I am not
here to play the mentor to you, or to carry about servants’
tittle-tattle. When you have seen more of your cousins,
you will form your own opinion of them ; meanwhile,
take an old soldier’s advice, I say again, and be cautious
with whom you deal, and what you say.’
Very soon after this little colloquy, Mr. Lambert’s
guest rose, with the assistance of Gumbo, his valet, to whom
he, for a hundredth time at least, promised a sound caning
if ever he should hear that Gumbo had ventured to talk
about his affairs again in the servants’ hall — ^which prohibi-
tion Gumbo solemnly vowed and declared he would for
ever obey ; but I dare say he was chattering the whole
228
THE VIRGINIANS
of the Castlewood secrets to his new friends of Colonel
Lambert’s kitchen ; for Harry’s hostess certainly heard
a number of stories concerning him which she could not
prevent her housekeeper from telling ; though of course
I would not accuse that worthy lady, or any of her sex,
or ours, of undue curiosity regarding their neighbours’
affairs. But how can you prevent servants talking, or
listening when the faithful attached creatures talk to you ?
Mr. Lambert’s house stood on the outskirts of the little
town of Oakhurst, which, if he but travels in the right
direction, the patient reader will find on the road between
Earnham and Reigate, — and Madame Bernstein’s servants
naturally pulled at the first bell at hand, when the young
Virginian met with his mishap. A few hundred yards
farther was the long street of the little old town, where
hospitality might have been found under the great swinging
ensigns of a couple of inns, and medical relief was to be
had, as a blazing gilt pestle and mortar indicated. But
what surgeon could have ministered more cleverly to a
patient than Harry’s host, who tended him without a fee ?
or what Boniface could make him more comfortably
welcome ?
Two tall gates, each surmounted by a couple of heraldic
monsters, led from the high road up to a neat, broad
stone terrace, whereon stood Oakhurst House ; a square
brick building, with windows faced with stone, and many
high cliimneys, and a tall roof surmounted by a fair balus-
trade. Behind the house stretched a la^ge garden, where
there was plenty of room for cabbages as well as roses
to grow ; and Wore the mansion, separated from it by
the high road, was a field of many acres, where the colonel’s
cows and horses were at grass. Over the centre window
was a carved shield supported by the same monsters who
pranced or ramped upon the entrance-gates ; and a coronet
over the shield. The fact is, that the house had been
originally the jointure-house of Oakhurst Castle, which
stood hard by, — ^its chimneys and turrets appearing over
the surrounding woods, now bronzed with the darkest
foliage of summer. Mr, Lambert’s was the greatest house
in Oakhurst town ; but the Castle was of more Importance
than aH the town put together. The Castle and the
jointure-house had been friends of many years’ date.
Their fathers had fought side by side in Queen Anne’s
IN HOSPITAL
229
•wars. There were two small pieces of ordnance on the
terrace of the jointure-house, and six before the Castle,
which had been taken out of the same privateer, which
Mr. Lambert and his kinsman and commander, Lord
Wrotham, had brought into Harwich in one of their voyages
home from Flanders with dispatches from the great duke.
His toilette completed with Mr. Gumbo’s aid, his fair
hair neatly dressed by that artist, and his open ribboned
sleeve and wounded shoulder supported by a handkerchief
which hung from his neck, Harry Warrington made his
way out of his sick chamber, preceded by his kind host,
who led him first down a broad oak stair, round which
hung many pikes and muskets of ancient shape, and so
into a square marble-paved room, from which the living-
rooms of the house branched off. There were more arms
in this hall — pikes and halberts of ancient date, pistols
and jack-boots of more than a century old, that had done
service in Cromwell’s wars, a tattered French guidon
which had been borne by a French gendarme at Malplaquet,
and a pair of cumbrous Highland broadswords, which,
having been carried as far as Derby, had been flung away
on the fatal field of Culloden. Here were breastplates
and black morions of Oliver’s troopers, and portraits of
stem warriors in buff jerkins and plain bands and short
hair. ‘ They fought against your grandfathers and King
Charles, Mr. Warrington,’ said Hariy’s host. ‘ I don’t
hide that. They rode to join the Prince of Orange at
Exeter. We were Whigs, young gentleman, and some-
thing more. John Lambert, the major-general, was
a kinsman of our house, and we were all more or less partial
to short hair and long sermons. You do not seem to like
either ? ’ Indeed, Harry’s face manifested signs of any-
thing but pleasure whilst he examined the portraits of the
Parliamentary heroes. ‘ Be not alarmed, we are very good
Churchmen now. My eldest son will be in orders ere long.
He is now travelling as governor to my Lord Wrotham’s
son in Italy ; and as for our women, they are all for the
Church, and carry me with ’em. Every woman is a Tory
at heart. Mr. Pope says a rake, but I think t’other is
the more charitable word. Come, let us go see them,’
and, flinging open the dark oak door, Colonel Lambert
led his young guest into the parlour where the ladies
were assembled.
THE VIRGINIANS
2ao
‘ Here is Miss Hester,’ said the colonel, ‘ and this is
Miss Theo, the soup-maker, the tailoress, the harpsichord
player, and the songstress, who set you to sleep last night.
Make a curtsy to the gentleman, young ladies ! Oh,
I forgot, and Theo is the mistress of the roses which you
admired a short while since in your bedroom. I think
she has kept some of them in her cheeks.’
In fact, Miss Theo was making a profound curtsy and
blushing most modestly as her papa spoke. I am not
going to describe her person, — though we shall see a great
deal of her in the course of this history. She was not
a particular beauty. Harry Warrington was not over
he^ and ears in love with her at an instant’s warning
and faithless to — to that other individual with whom,
as we have seen, the youth had lately been smitten. Miss
Theo had kind eyes and a sweet voice ; a ruddy freckled
cheek and a round white neck, on which, out of a little
cap such as misses wore in those times, fell rich curling
clusters of dark brown hair. She was not a delicate or
sentimental-looking person. Her arms, which were worn
bare from the elbow like other ladies’ arms in those days,
were very jolly and red. Her feet were not so miraculously
small but that you could see them without a telescope. There
was nothing waspish about her waist. This young person
was sixteen years of age, and looked older. I don’t know
what call she had to blush so when she made her curtsy
to the stranger. It was such a deep ceremonial curtsy
as you never see at present. She and . her ^ster both
made these ‘ cheeses ’ in compliment to the new-comer,
and with much stately agility.
As Miss Theo rose up out of this salute, her papa tapped
her under the chin (which was of the double sort of chins),
and laughingly hummed out the line which he had read
the day before. ‘ Eh Men / gue dites-vous, ma file, de
noire hole ? ’
^ Nonsense, Mr. Lambert ! ’ cries mamma.
‘ Nonsense is sometimes the best kind of sense in the
world,’ said Colonel Lambert. His guest looked puzzled.
‘ Are you fond of nonsense ? ’ the colonel continued to
Harry, seeing by the boy’s face that the latter had no
great love or comprehension of his favourite humour.
*We consume a vast deal of it in this house. Rabelais
is my favourite reading. My wife is all for Mr. Fielding
IN HOSPITAL
231
and Theophrastus, I think Theo prefers Tom Brown,
and Mrs. Hetty here loves Bean Swift.’
‘ Our papa is talking what he loves,’ says Miss Hetty.
‘ And what is that, miss ? ’ asks the father of his second
daughter.
‘ Sure, sir, you said yourself it was nonsense,’ answers
the young lady, with a saucy toss of her head.
‘ Which of them do you like best, Mr. Warrington ? ’
asked the honest colonel.
‘ Which of whom, sir ? ’
‘ The Curate of Meudon, or the Dean of St. Patrick’s,
or honest Tom, or Mr. Fielding ? ’
‘ And what were they, sir ? ’
‘ They ! Why, they wrote books.’
‘ Indeed, sir. I never heard of either one of ’em,’ said
Harry, hanging down his head. ‘ I fear my book-learning
was neglect^ at home, sir. My brother had read every
book that ever was wrote, I think. He could have talked
to you about ’em for hours together.’
With this little speech Mrs. Lambert’s eyes turned to her
daughter, and Miss Theo cast hers down and blushed.
‘ Never mind ; honesty is better than books any day,
Mr. Warrington ! ’ cried the joUy colonel. ‘ You may go
through the world very honourably without reading any
of the books I have b^n talking of, and some of them
might give you more pleasure than profit.’
‘I Imow more about horses and dogs than Greek and
Latin, sir. We most of us do in Virginia,’ said Mr. War-
rington.
" You are like the Persians : you can ride and speak
the truth.’
^ Are the Prussians very good on horseback, sir ? I hope
I shall see their king and a campaign or two, either with
’em or against ’em,’ remarked Colonel Lambert’s guest.
Why did Miss Theo look at her mother, and why did that
good woman’s face assume a sad expression ?
Wliy ? Because young lasses are bred in humdrum
country towns, do you suppose they never indulge in
romances ? Because they are modest and have never
quitted mother’s apron, do you suppose they have no
thoughts of their own ? What happens in spite of all
those precautions which the king and queen take for
their darling princess, those dragons, and that impene-
2S2
THE VIEGINIANS
trable forest, and that castle of steel ? The fairy prince
penetrates the impenetrable forest, finds the weak point
in the dragon’s scale-armour, and gets the better of all
the ogres who guard the castle of steel. Away goes the
princess to him. She knew him at once. Her band-
boxes and portmanteaux are filled with her best clothes
and all her jewels. She has been ready ever so long.
That is in fairy tales, you understand — ^where the blessed
hour and youth always arrive, the ivory horn is blown
at the castle gate ; and far off in her beauteous bower
the princess hears it, and starts up, and knows that there
is the right champion. He is always ready. Look ! how
the giants’ heads tumble off, as, falchion in hand, he gallops
over the bridge on his white charger 1 How should that
virgin, locked up in that inaccessible fortress, where she
has never seen any man that was not eighty, or hump-
backed, or her father, know that there were such beings in
the world as young men ? I isuppose there’s an instinct.
I suppose there’s a season. I never spoke for my part
to a fairy princess, or heard as much from any unenohanted
or enchanting maiden. Ne’er a one of them has ever
whispered her pretty little secrets to me, or perhaps con-
fess^ them to herself, her mamma, or her nearest and
dearest confidante. But they will fall in love. Their
little hearts are constantly throbbing at the window of
expectancy on the look-out for the champion. They are
always hearing his horn. They are f ever on the tower
looking out for the hero. Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you
see him ? Surely ’tis a knight with curling mustachios,
a flashing scimitar, and a suit of silver armour. Oh, no !
it is only a costermonger with his donkey and a pannier
of cabbage I Sister Ann, Sister Ann, what is that cloud of
dust ? Oh, it is only a farmer’s man driving a flock of pigs
from market. Sister Ann, Sister Ann, who is that splendid
warrior advancing in scarlet and gold ? He nears the
castle, he clears the drawbridge, he lifts the ponderous
hammer at the gate. Ah, me, he knocks twice ! ’Tis
only the postman with a double letter from Northampton-
shire ! So it is we make false starts in life. I don’t believe
there is any such thing known as first love — not within
man’s or woman’s memory. No male or female remembers
his or her first inclination any more than his or her own
christening. What ? You fancy that your sweet mistress.
IN HOSPITAL
m
your spotless spinster, your blank maiden just out of the
schoolroom, never cared for any but you ? And she
tells you so ? Oh, you idiot ! When she was four years
old she had a tender feeling towards the Buttons who
brought the coals up to the nursery, or the little sweep at
the crossing, or the music master, or never mind whom.
She had a secret longing towards her brother’s schooKeUow,
or the third charity boy at church, and if occasion had
served, the comedy enacted with you had been performed
along with another. I do not mean to say that she confessed
this amatory sentiment, but that she had it. Lay down
this page, and think how many and many and many
a time you were in love before you selected the present
Mrs. Jones as the partner of your name and affections !
So, from the way in which Theo held her head down,
and exchanged looks with her mother, when poor un-
conscious Harry called the Persians the Prussians, and
talked of serving a campaign with them, I make no doubt
she was feeling ashamed, and thinking within herself,
‘ Is this the hero with whom my mamma and I have been
in love for these twenty-four hours, and whom we have
endowed with every perfection ? How beautiful, pale,
and graceful he looked yesterday as he lay on the ground !
How his curls fell over his face ! How sad it was to see
his poor white arm, and the blood trickling from it when
papa bled him I And now he is well and amongst us,
he is handsome certainly, but oh, is it possible he is — he is
stupid ? ’ When she lighted the lamp and looked at him,
did Psyche find Cupid out ; and is that the meaning of the
old allegory ? The wings of love drop off at this discovery.
The fancy can no more soar and disport in skyey regions :
the beloved object ceases at once to be celestial, and remains
plodding on earth, entirely unromautic and substantial.
13
234
THE VIEGINIANS
CHAPTER XXIII
HOUDAYS
BS. Lambert’s little day-
dream was over. Miss
Theo and her mother were
obliged to confess, in their
hearts, that their hero
was but an ordinary mortal.
They uttered few words
on the subject, but each
knew the other’s thoughts
as people who love each
other do ; and mamma,
by an extra tenderness
and special caressing man-
ner towards her daughter,
sought to console her for her disappointment. ‘Never
mind, my dear ’ — the maternal kiss whispered on the filial
cheek — ‘ our hero has turned out to be but an ordinary
mortal, and none such is good enough for my Theo. Thou
shalt have a real husband ere long, if there be one in Eng-
land. Why, I was scarce fifteen when your father saw
me at the Bury Assembly, and while I was yet at school,
I used to vow that I never would have any other man.
E Heaven gave me such a husband — the best man in the
whole kingdom — sure it will bless my child equally, who
d^erves a king, if she fancies him ! ’ Indeed, I am not
sure that Mrs. Lambert — ^who, of course, knew the age
of the Prince of Wales, and was aware how handsome
and good a young prince he was — did not expect that he
too would come riding by her gate, and perhaps tumble down
from his horse there, and be taken into the house, and
be cured, and cause his royal grandpapa to give Martin
Lambert a regiment, and fall in love with Theo.
The colonel for his part, and his second daughter, Miss
Hetty, were on the laughing, scornful, unbelieving side.
Mamma was always matchmaking. Indeed, Mrs. Lambert
was much addict^ to novels, and cried her eyes out over
them with great assiduity. No coach ever passed the
HOLIDAYS
23 >
gate, but she expected a husband for her girls would alight
from it and ring the bell. As for ]VIiss Hetty, she allow^ed
her tongue to wag in a more than usually saucy way : she
made a hundred sly allusions to their guest. She intro-
duced Prussia and Persia into their conversation with
abominable pertness and frequency. She asked whether the
present King of Prussia was called the Shaw or the Sophy,
and how far it was from Ispahan to Saxony, which his
Majesty was at present invading, and about which war
papa was so busy with his maps and his newspapers 't
She brought down the Persian Tales from her mamma’s
closet, and laid them slily on the table in the parlour where
the family sat. She would not marry a Persian prince
for her part ; she would prefer a gentleman who might
not have more than one wife at a time. She called our
young Virginian, Theo’s gentleman, Theo’s prince. She
asked mamma if she wished her, Hetty, to take the other
visitor, the black prince, for herself ? Indeed, she rallied
her sister and her mother tmceasingly on their senti-
mentalities, and would never stop until she had made
them angry, when she would begin to cry herself, and kiss
them violently one after the other, and coax them back
into good humour. Simple Harry Warrington meanwhile
knew nothing of all the jokes, the tears, quarrels, reconcilia-
tions, hymeneal plans, and so forth, cf which he was the
innocent occasion, A hundred allusions to the Prussians
and Persians were shot at him, and those Parthian arrows
did not penetrate his hide at all. A Shaw ? A Sophy ?
Very likely he thought a Sophy was a lady, and would
have deemed it the height of absurdity that a man with
a great black beard should have any such name. We fall
into the midst of a quiet family : we drop like a stone, say,
into a pool, — we are perfectly compact and cool, and little
know the flutter and excitement we make there, disturbing
the flsh, frightening the ducks, and agitating the whole
surface of the water. How should Harry know the effect
which his sudden appearance produced in this little, quiet,
sentimental family ? He thought quite well enough of
himself on many points, but was diffident as yet regarding
women, being of that age when young gentlemen require
encouragement and to be brought forward, and having
been brought up at home in very modest and primitive
relations towards the other sex. So Miss Hetty’s jokes
236
THE VIRGINIANS
played round the lad, and he minded them no more than
so many summer gnats. It was not that he was stupid,
as she certainly thought him : he was simple, too much
occupied with himself and his own private affairs to think
of others. Why, what tragedies, comedies, interludes,
intrigues, farces, are going on under our noses in friends’
drawing-rooms where we visit every day, and we remain
utterly ignorant, self-satisfied, and blind ! As these
sisters sat and combed their flowing ringlets of nights, or
talked with each other in the great bed where according
to the fashion of the day they lay together, how should
Harry know that he had so great a share in their thoughts,
jokes, conversation ? Three days after his arrival, his
new and hospitable friends were walking with him in my
Lord Wrotham’s fine park, where they were free to wander ;
and here, on a piece of water, they came to some swans,
which the young ladies were in the habit of feeding with
bread. As the birds approached the young women, Hetty
said, with a queer look at her mother and sister, and then
a glance at her father, who stood by, honest, happy, in a red
waistcoat, — Hetty said : ‘ Mamma’s swans are something
like these, papa.’
‘ What swans, my dear ? ’ says mamma.
^ Something like, but not quite. They have shorter necks
than these, and scores of them are on our common,’ con-
tinues Miss Hetty. ‘I saw Betty plucking one in the
kitchen this morning. We shall have it for dinner, with
apple-sauce and ’
‘ Don’t be a little goose ! ’ says Miss Theo.
‘And sage and onions. Do you love swan, Mr. War-
rington ? ’
‘ I shot three last winter on our river,’ said the Virginian
gentleman. ‘ Ours are not such white birds as these— they
eat very well though.’ The simple youth had not the
slightest idea that he himself was an allegory at that very
time, and that Miss Hetty was narrating a fable regarding
him. In some exceedingly recondite Latin work I have
read that, long before Virginia was discovered, other folks
were equally dull of comprehension.
So it was a premature sentiment on the part of Miss Theo
— that little tender flutter of the bosom which we have
acknowledged she felt on first beholding the Virginian,
so handsome, pale, and bleeding. This was not the great
HOLIDAYS
237
passion which she knew her heart could feel. Like the
birds, it had wakened and begun to sing, at a false dawn.
Hop back to thy perch, and cover thy head with thy wing,
thou tremulous little fluttering creature ! It is not yet
light, and roosting is as yet better than singing. Anon
will come morning, and the whole sky will redden, and you
shall soar up into it and salute the sun with your music.
One little phrase, some five-and-thirty lines back, perhaps
the fair and suspicious reader has remarked : ‘ Three days
after his arrival, Harry was walking with,’ &c. &c. If he
could walk — which it appeared he could do perfectly
well — ^what business had he to be walking with anybody
but Lady Maria Esmond on the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells?
His shoulder was set : his health was entirely restored :
he had not even a change of coats, as we have seen, and
was obliged to the colonel for his raiment. Surely a young
man in such a condition had no right to be lingering on at
Oakliurst, and was bound by every tie of duty and con-
venience, by love, by relationship, by a gentle heart waiting
for him, by the washerwoman finally, to go to Tunbridge.
Why did he stay behind, unless he was in love with either
of the young ladies ? (and we say he wasn’t). Could it be
that he did not want to go ? Only a week ago was he
whispering in Castlewood shrubberies, and was he now
ashamed of the nonsense he had talked there ? What ?
A passion that was to endure for ever and ever dead and
buried in a week, and remembered only with shame ?
Had there, besides whispering in those shrubberies, been
any hand-kissing, clasping, and so forth ? [Hath the
gracious reader understood the meaning of the mystic S
with which the last chapter commences, and in which the
designer has feebly endeavoured to depict the notorious
Sindbad the Sailor surmounted by that odious Old Man of
the Sea ? What if Harry Warrington should be that sailor
and his fate that choking, deadening, inevitable Old
Man ?] What if for two days past he has felt those
hands [knees] throttling him round the neck ? if his
fell aunt’s purpose is answered, and if his late love is
killed as dead by her poisonous communications as Fair
Rosamond was by her royal and legitimate rival ? Is
Hero then lighting the lamp up, and getting ready the
supper, whilst Leander is sitting comfortably with
some other party, and never in the least thinking of
238
THE VIRGINIANS
taking to the water ? Ever since that coward’s blow
was struck in Lady Maria’s back by her own relative,
surely kind hearts must pity her ladyship. I know she
has faults — aye, and wears false hair and false never
mind what. But a woman in distress, shall we not pity
her? — a lady of a certain age, are we going to laugh
at her because of her years ? Between her old aunt and
her unhappy delusion, be sure my Lady Maria Esmond
is having no very pleasant time of it at Tunbridge Wells.
There is no one to protect her. Madam Beatrix has her all
to herself. Lady Maria is poor, and hopes for money from
her aunt. Lady Maria has a secret or two which the old
woman knows, and brandishes over her. I for one am
quite melted and grow soft-hearted as I think of her.
Imagine her alone, and a victim to that old woman I Paint
to yourself that antique Andromeda (if you please we
will allow that rich flowing head of hair to fall over her
shoulders) chain^ to a rock on Mount Ephraim, and given
up to that dragon of a baroness ! Succour, Perseus I
Come quickly with thy winged feet and flashing falchion !
Perseus is not in the least hurry. The dragon has her
will of Andromeda for day after day.
Harry Warrington, who would not have allowed his
dislocated and mended shoulder to keep him from going
out hunting, remained day after day contentedly at Oak-
hurst, with each day finding the kindly folks who welcomed
him more to his liking. Perhaps he had never, since his
grandfather’s death, been in such good company. His lot
had lain amongst fox-hunting Virginian squires, with
whose society he had put up very contentedly, riding their
horses, living their lives, and sharing their punch-bowls.
The ladies of his own and mother’s acquaintance were
very well bred, and decorous, and pious, no doubt, but
somewhat narrow-minded. It was but a little place,
his home, with its pompous ways, small etiquettes and
punctilios, small flatteries, small conversations and scandals.
Until he had left the place, some time after, he did not
know how narrow and confined his life had been there.
He was free enough personally. He had dogs and horses,
and might shoot and hunt for scores of miles round about :
but the little lady-mother domineered at home, and
when there he had to submit to her influence and breathe
her air.
HOLIDAYS
239
Here the lad found himself in the midst of a circle where
everything about him was incomparably gayer, brighter,
and more free. He was living with a man and woman
who had seen the world, though they lived retired
from it, who had both of them happened to enjoy from
their earliest times the use not only of good books, but of
good company — ^those live books, which are such pleasant
and sometimes such profitable reading. Society has this
good at least : that it lessens our conceit, by teaching
us our insignificance, and making us acquainted with our
betters, you are a young person who read this, depend
upon it, sir or madam, there is nothing more whole-
some for you than to acknowledge and to associate with
your superiors. If I could, I would not have my son
Thomas first Greek and Latin prize boy, first oar, and
cock of the school. Better for his soul’s and body’s welfare
that he should have a good place, not the first — a fair set
of competitors round about him, and a good thrashing
now and then, with a hearty shake afterwards of the hand
which administered the beating. What honest man that
can choose his lot would be a prince, let us say, and have
all society walking backwards before him, only obsequious
household-gentlemen to talk to, and all mankind mum
except when your high mightiness asks a question and
gives permission to speak ? One of the great benefits
which Harry Warrington received from this family, before
whose gate Fate had shot him, was to begin to learn that
he was a profoundly ignorant young fellow, and that there
were many people in the world far better than he knew
himself to be. Arrogant a little with some folks, in the
company of his superiors he was magnanimously docile.
We have seen how faithfully he admired Ms brother at
home, and his friend, the gallant young colonel of Mount
Vernon : of the gentlemen, his kinsmen at Castlewood,
he had felt himself at least’the equal. In his new acquaint-
ance at Oakhurst he found a man who had read far more
books than Harry could pretend to judge of, who had seen
the world and come unwounded out of it, as he had out of
the dangers and battles wMch he had confronted, and
who had goodness and honesty written on his face and
breathing from his lips, for which qualities our brave lad
had always an instinctive sympathy and predil^tion.
As for the women, they were the kindest, merriest, most
240
THE vjBmmAm
agreeable he had as yet known. They were pleasanter
than Parson Broadbent’s black-eyed daughter at home,
whose laugh carried as far as a gun. They were quite
as well br^ as the Castlewood ladies, with the exception of
Madam Beatrix (who, indeed, was as grand as an empress
on some occasions). But somehow, after a talk with
Madam Beatrix, and vast amusement and interest in her
stories, the lad would come away as with a bitter taste
in his mouth, and fancy all the world wicked round about
him. The Lamberts were not squeamish : and laughed
over pages of Mr. Fielding, and cried over volumes of
Mr. Richardson, containing jokes and incidents which
would make Mrs. Grundy’s hair stand on end, yet their
merry prattle left no bitterness behind it : their tales
about this neighbour and that were droll, not malicious ;
the curtsies and salutations with which the folks of the
little ndghbouring town received them, how kindly and
cheerful I their bounties how cordial ! Of a truth it is
good to be with good people. How good Harry Warring-
km did not know at the time, perhaps, or until subsequent
experience showed him contrasts, or caused him to feel
remorse. Here was a tranquil, sunshiny day of a life
that was to be agitated and stormy — a happy hour or
two to remember. Not much happened during the happy
hour or two. It was only sweet sleep, pleasant wakl^,
friendly welcome, serene pastime. The gates of th6 old
house seemed to shut the wicked world out somehow, and
the inhabitants within to be better, and purer, and kinder
than other people. He was not in love ; oh, no ! not
the least, either with saucy Hetty, or generous Theodosia :
but when the time came for going away, he fastened on both
their hands, and felt an immense regard for them. He
thought he should like to know their brothers, and that
they must be fine fellows ; and as for Mrs. Lambert,
I believe she was as sentimental at his departure as if he
had been the last volume of Clarissa Harlowe,
* He is very kind and honest,’ said Theo, gravely, as,
looking from the terrace, they saw him and their father and
servants riding away on the road to Westerham.
‘ I don’t think him stupid at all now,’ said little Hetty ;
* and, mamma, I think he is very like a swan indeed.’
‘It felt just like one of the boys going to school,’ said
mamma.
HOLIDAYS
241
‘ Just like it,’ said Theo, sadly.
‘ I am glad he has got papa to ride with him to Wester-
ham,’ resumed Miss Hetty, ‘ and that he bought Farmer
Briggs’s horse. I don’t like his going to those Castle-
wo^ people. I am sure that Madame Bernstein is a
wicked old woman. I expected to see her ride away on
her crooked stick.’
‘ Hush, Hetty I ’
" Do you think she would float if they tried her in the
pond as poor old Mother Hely did at Elmhurst ? The other
old woman seemed fond of him — I mean the one with the
fair tour. She looked very melancholy when she went
away ; but Madame Bernstein whisked her off with her
crutch, and she was obliged to go. I don’t care, Theo,
I know she is a wicked woman. You think everybody
good, you do, because you never do anything wrong
yourself.’
‘ My Theo is a good girl,’ says the mother, looking fondly
at both her daughters.
‘ Then why do we call her a miserable sinner ? ’
* We are all so, my love,’ said mamma.
‘ What, papa too ? You know you don’t think so,’
cries Miss Hester. And to allow this was almost more
than Mrs. Lambert could afford.
‘ What was that you told John to give to Mr. Warrington’s
black man ? ’
Mamma owned, with some shamefacedness, it was a
bottle of her cordial water and a cake which she had bid
Betty make. ‘ I feel quite like a mother to him, my dears,
I can’t help owning it, — and you know both our boys
still like one of our cakes to take to school or college with
them,’
242
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM OAKHUBST TO TOTBRIDGB
AVING her lily hand-
kerchief in token of
adieu to the de-
parting travellers,
Mrs. Lambert and
her girls watched
them pacing
leisurely on the
first few hundred
yardsof their jour-
ney, and until such
time as a tree-
clumped corner of
the road hid them
from the ladies’
view. Behind that
clump of limes the
good matron had
many a time watched those she loved best disappear.
Husband departing to battle and danger, sons to school,
each after the other, had gone on his way behind yon-
der green trees, returning as it pleased Heaven’s will
at his good time, and bringing pleasui^ and love back
to the happy little family. Besides their own instinc-
tive nature (which to be sure aids wonderfully in the
matter), the leisure and contemplation attendant upon
their home life serve to foster the tenderness and
fidehty of our women. The men gone, there is all day
to think about them, and to-morrow and to-morrow — ^when
there certainly will be a letter — and so on. There is the
vacant room to go look at, where the boy slept last night,
and the impression of his carpet-bag is still on the bed.
There is his whip hung up in the hall, and his fishing-rod
and basket — ^mute memorials of the brief bygone pleasures-
At dinner there comes up that cherry tart, half of which
our darling ate at two qj^clock in spite of his melancholy,
and with a choking little sister on each side of him. The
pabewell
FROM OAKHURST TO TUNBRIDGE 245
evening prayer is said without that young scholar’s voice
to utter the due responses. Midnight and silence come,
and the good mother lies wakeful, thinking how one of the
dear accustomed brood is away from the nest. Morn
breaks, home and holidays have passed away, and toil and
labour have begun for him. So those rustling limes formed,
as it were, a screen between the world and our ladies of
the house at Oakhurst. Kind-hearted Mrs. Lambert always
became silent and thoughtful, if by chance she and her girls
walked up to the trees in the absence of the men of the
family. She said she would like to carve their names upon
the grey silvered trunks, in the midst of true-lovers’ knots,
as was then the kindly fashion ; and Miss Theo, who had
an exceeding elegant turn that way, made some verses
regarding the trees, which her delighted parent transmitted
to a periodical of those days.
‘ Now we are out of sight of the ladies,’ says Colonel Lam-
bert, giving a parting salute with his hat, as the pair of
gentlemen trotted past the limes in question. ‘ I know
my wife always watches at her window until we are round
this corner. I hope we shall have you seeing the trees
and the house again, Mr. Warrington ; and the boys being
at home, mayhap there will be better sport for you.’
‘ I never want to be happier, sir, than I have been,’
replied Mr. Warrington ; ‘ and I hope you will let me say,
that I feel as if I am leaving quite old friends behind me.’
‘ The friend at whose house we shall sup to-night hath
a son, who is an old friend of our family, too, and my
wife, who is an inveterate marriage- monger, would have
made a match between him and one of my girls, but
that the colonel hath chosen to fall in love with somebody
else.’
‘ Ah ! ’ sighed Mr. Warrington.
‘ Other folks have done the same thing. There were
brave fellows before Agamemnon.’
" I beg your pardon, sir. Is the gentleman’s name —
Aga . I did not quite gather it,’ meekly inquired the
younger traveller.
‘ No, his name is James Wolfe,’ cried the colonel, smiling.
‘ He is a young fellow still, or what we call so, being scarce
thirty years old. He is the youngest lieutenant-colonel
in the army, unless, to be sure, we except a few scores of
our nobility, who take rank before us common folk.’
246
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Of course, of course ! ’ says the coloneTs young com-
panion, with true colonial notions of aristocratic precedence.
" And I have seen him commanding captains, and very
brave captains, who were thirty years his seniors, and who
had neither his merit nor his good fortune. But, lucky
as he hath been, no one envies his superiority, for, indeed,
most of us acknowledge that he is our superior. He is
beloved by every man of our old regiment, and knows
every one of them. He is a good scholar as well as a con-
summate soldier, and a master of many languages.’
‘ Ah, sir ! ’ said Harry Warrington, with a sigh of great
humility ; ‘ I feel that I have neglected my own youth
sadly ; and am come to England but an ignoramus. Had
my dear brother been alive he would have represented
our name and our colony, too, better than I can do. George
was a scholar ; George was a musician ; George could talk
with the most learnt people in our country, and I make
no doubt would have held his own here. Do you know,
sir, I am glad to have come home, and to you especially,
if but to learn how ignorant I am.’
‘ If you know that well, ’tis a great gain already,’ said
the colonel, with a smile.
‘ At home, especially of late, and since we lost my brother,
I used to think myself a mighty fine fellow, and have no
doubt that the folks round about flattered me. I am
wiser now, — that is, I hope I am, — ^though perhaps I am
wrong, and only bragging again. But you see, sir, the
gentry in our colony don’t know very nmch, except about
dogs and horses, and betting €uid games. I wish I knew
more about books, and less about them.’
‘ Nay. Dogs and horses are very good books, too, in
their way, and we may read a deal of truth out of ’em.
Some men are not made to be scholars, and may be very
worthy citizens and g^tlemen in spite of their ignorance.
What call have all of us to be especially learned or wise,
or to take a first place in the world ? His royal highness
is commander, and Martin Lambert is colonel, and Jack
Hunt, who rides behind yonder, was a private soldier,
and is now a very honest, worthy groom. So as we all
do our best in our station, it matters not much whether
that be high or low. Nay, how do we know what is high
and what is low ? and whether Jack’s currycomb, or my
epaulets, or his royal highness’s baton, may not turn out
FROM OAKHURST TO TUNBRIDGE
247
to be pretty equal ? When I began life, et militavi non
sine — ^never mind what — I dreamed of success and honour ;
now I think of duty, and yonder folks, from whom we parted
a few hours ago. Let us trot on, else we shall not reach
Westerham before nightfall.’
At Westerham the two friends were welcomed by their
hosts, a stately matron, an old soldier, whose recollections
and services were of five-and-forty years back, and the
son of this gentleman and lady, the lieutenant-colonel of
Kingsley’s regiment, that was then stationed at Maidstone,
whence the colonel had come over on a brief visit to his
parents. Harry looked %\ith some curiosity at this officer,
who, young as he was, had seen so much service, and
obtained a character so high. There was little of the
beautiful in his face. He was very lean and very pale ;
his hair was red, his nose and cheek-bones were high ;
but he had a fine courtesy towards his elders, a cordial
greeting towards his friends, and an animation in con-
versation which caused those who heard him to forget,
even to admire, his homely looks.
Mr. Warrington was going to Tunbridge ? Their James
would bear him company, the lady of the house said, and
whispered something to Colonel Lambert at supper, which
occasioned smiles and a knowing wink or tw^o from that
officer. He called for wine, and toasted ^ Miss Lowther’.
‘ With all my heart,’ cried the enthusiastic Colonel James,
and drained his glass to the very last drop. Mamma
whispered her friend ho-w James and the lady were going
to make a match, and how she came of the famous Lowther
family of the North.
‘ If she was the daughter of King Charlemagne,’ cries
Lambert, ® she is not too good for James Wolfe, or for his
mother’s son.’
‘ Mr. Lambert would not say so if he knew her,’ the young
colonel declared.
‘ Oh, of course, she is the priceless pearl, and you are
nothing,’ cries mamma. ‘ No. I am of Colonel Lambert’s
opinion ; and, if she brought all Cumberland to you for
a jointure, I should say it was but James’s due. That is
the \vay with ’em, Mr. Warrington. We tend our cluldren
through fevers, and measles, and whooping-cough, and
small-pox ; w^e send them to the army and can’t sleep at
night for thinking ,* we break our hearts at parting with
248
THE VIRGINIANS
’em, and have them at home only for a week or two in the
year, or maybe ten years, and, after all our care, there
comes a lass with a pair of bright eyes, and away goes our
boy, and never cares a fig for us afterwards.’
‘ And pray, my dear, how did you come to marry James’s
papa ? ’ said the elder Colonel Wolfe. ‘ And w^hy didn’t
you stay at home with your parents ? ’
‘ Because James’s papa was gouty and wanted somebody
to take care of him, I suppose ; not because I liked him
a bit,’ answers the lady : and so with much easy talk and
kindness the evening passed away.
On the morrow, and with many expressions of kindness
and friendship for his late guest. Colonel Lambert gave
over the young Virginian to Mr. Wolfe’s charge, and turned
his horse’s he^ homewards, while the two gentlemen sped
towards Tunbridge Wells. Wolfe was in a hurry to reach
the place, Harry Warrington was, perhaps, not quite so
eager : nay, when Lambert rode towards his own home,
Harry’s thoughts followed him with a great deal of longing
desire to the parlour at Oakhurst, where he had spent three
days in happy calm. Mr. Wolfe agreed in all Harry’s
enthusiastic praise of Mr. Lambert, and of his wife, and of
his daughters, and of all that excellent family. ‘ To have
such a good name, and to live such a life as Colonel Lam-
bert’s,’ said WoMe, ‘ seem to me now the height of human
ambition.’
‘ And glory and honour ! ’ asked Warriii^on, ^ are
those nothing ? and would you give up the winning of
them ? ’
‘ They were my dreams once,’ answered the colonel, who
had now different ideas of happiness, ^ and now my desires
are much more tranquil. I have followed arms ever since
I was fourteen years of age. I have seen almost every kind
of duty connected with my calling. I know all the garrison
towns in this country, and have had the honour to serve
wherever there has been work to be done during the last
ten years. I have done pretty nearly the whole of a soldier’s
duty, except, indeed, the command of an army, which can
har&y be hoped for by one of my years ; and now, methinks,
I would like quiet, books to read, a wife to love me, and
some children to dandle on my knee. I have imagined
some such Elysium for myself, Mr. Warrington. True
love is better than glory ; and a tranquil fireside, with the
FROM OAKHUBBT TO TUNBRIDGE
249
woman of your heart seated by it, the greatest good the gods
can send to us/
Harry imagined to himself the picture which his comrade
called up. He said ‘Yes’ in answer to the other’s
remark ; but, no doubt, did not give a very cheerful
assent, for his companion observed upon the expression
of his face.
‘ You say “Yes ” as if a fireside and a sweetheart were not
particularly to your taste.’
‘ Why, look you, colonel ; there are other things which
a young fellow might like to enjoy. You have had sixteen
years of the world : and I am but a few months away from
my mother’s apron-strings. When I have seen a campaign
or two, or six, as you have : when I have distinguished
myseK like Mr. WoKe, and made the world talk of me, I then
may think of retiring from it.’
To these remarks, Mr. Wolfe, w^hose heart was full of
a very different matter, replied by breaking out in a further
encomium of the Joys of marriage ; and a special rhapsody
upon the beauties and merits of his mistress — a, theme
intensely interesting to himself, though not so, possibly,
to his hearer, whose views regarding a married life, if he
permitted himself to entertain any, were some'what melan-
choly and despondent. A pleasant afternoon brought
them to the end of their ride ; nor did any accident or
incident accompany it, save, perhaps, a mistake which
Harry Warrington made at some few miles’ distance from
Tunbridge Wells, where tw^o horsemen stopped them, whom
Harry w’-as for charging, pistol in hand, supposing them to
be highw'aymen. Colonel Wolfe, laughing, bade Mr. War-
rington reserve his fire, for these folks were only innkeepers’
agents, and not robbers (except in their calling). Gumbo,
whose horse ran away with him at this particular Juncture,
w^as brought back after a great deal of bawiing on his master’s
part, and the two gentlemen rode into the little town,
alighted at their inn, and then separated, each in quest of
the ladies whom he had come to visit.
Mr. Warrington found his aunt installed in handsome
lodgings, with a guard of London lackeys in her ante-
room, and to follow her chair when she w’ent abroad. She
received him with the utmost kindness. His cousin my
Lady Maria was absent when he arrived : I don’t know
whether the young gentleman was unhappy at not seeing
250
THE VIRGINIANS
her : or whether he disguised his feelings, or whether Madame
de Bernstein took any note regarding them.
A beau in a rich figured suit, the first specimen of the
kind Harry had seen, and two dowagers with voluminous
hoops and plenty of rouge, were on a visit to the baroness
when her nephew made his bow to her. She introduced
the young man to these personages as her nephew, the
young Croesus out of Virginia, of whom they had heard.
She talked about the immensity of his estate, which was
as large as Kent; and, as she had read, in^tely more
fruitful. She mentioned how her half-sister. Madam
Esmond, was called Princess Pocahontas in her own country.
She never tired in her praises of mother and son, of their
riches and their good qualities. The beau shook the young
man by the hand, and was delighted to have the honour
to make his acquaintance. The ladies praised him to his
aunt so loudly that the modest youth was fain to blush at
their compliments. They went away to inform the Tun-
bridge society of the news of his arrival. The little place
was soon buzzing with accounts of the wealth, the good
breeding, and the good looks of the Virginian.
‘ You could not have come at a better moment, my
dear,’ the baroness said to her nephew, as her visitors
departed with many curtsies and congees. ‘Those three
individuals have the most active tongues in the WeUs.
They wiU trumpet your good qualities in every company
where they go. I have introduced you to a hundred people
already, and. Heaven help me ! have told all sorts of fibs
about the geography of Virginia, in order to describe your
estate. It a prodi^ous large one, but I am afraid
I have magnified it. I have filled it with all sorts of
wonderful animals, gold mines, spices; I am not sure
I have not said diamonds. As for your negroes, I have
given your mother armies of them, and, in fact, represented
her as a sovereign princess reigning over a magnificent
dominion. So she has a magnificent dominion : I cannot
tell to a few hundred thousand pounds how much her
yearly income is, but I have no doubt it is a very great
one. And you must prepare, sir, to be treated here as
the heir-apparent of this royal lady. Do not let your head
be turned ! From this day forth you are going to be
flattered as you have never been flattered in your life.’
‘ And to what end, ma’am ? ’ asked the young gentle**
FROM OAKHURST TO TUNBRIDGE
251
man. ‘ I see no reason why I should be reputed so rich,
or get so much flattery,’
‘ In the first place, sir, you must not contradict your
old aunt, w’ho has no desire to be made a fool of before
her company. And as for your reputation, you must know
we found it here almost ready-made on our arrival. A
London newspaper has somehow heard of you, and come
out with a story of the immense wealth of a young gentle-
man from Virginia lately landed, and a nephew^ of my
Lord Castlewo^. Immensely wealthy you are, and can’t
help yourself. All the world is eager to see you- You
shall go to church to-morrow morning, and see how the
wLole congregation will turn away from its books and
prayers, to worship the golden calf in your person. You
would not have had me undeceive them, would you, and
speak ill of my own flesh and blood ? ’
‘ But how am I bettered by this reputation for money ? ’
asked Harry.
‘ You are making your entry into the world, and the
gold key will open most of its doors to you. To be thought
rich is as good as to be rich. You need not spend much
money. People will say that you hoard it, and your
reputation for avarice will do you good rather than harm.
You’ll see how the mothers will smile upon you, and the
daughters will curtsy I Don’t look surprised ! When I was
a young woman myself I did as all the rest of the world
did, and tried to better myself by more than one desperate
attempt at a good marriage. Your poor grandmother,
who was a saint upon earth to be sure, bating a little
jealousy, used to scold me, and called me w^orldly. Worldly,
my dear ! So is the world worldly ; and we must serve it
as it serves us ; and give it nothing for nothing. Mr. Henry
Esmond Warrington — ^I can’t help loving the two first
names, sir, old woman as I am, and that I tell you — on
coming here or to London, would have been nobody. Our
protection would have helped him but little. Our family
has little credit, and, entre nous, not much reputation.
I suppose you know that Castlew^ood was more than sus-
pected in ’45, and hath since ruined himself by play ? ’
Harry had never heard about Lord Castlewood or his
reputation.
‘ He never had much to lose, but he has lost that and
more : his wretched estate is eaten up with mortgages.
252
THE VIRGINIANS
He has been at all sorts of schemes to raise money : my
dear, he has been so desperate at times, that I ^d not
think my diamonds were safe with him ; and have travelled
to and from Castlewood without them. Terrible, isn’t it,
to speak so of one’s own nephew ? But you are my nephew
too, and not spoiled by the world yet, and I wish to warn
you of its wickedness. I heard of your play-doings with
Will and the chaplain, but they could do you no harm, —
nay, I am told you had the better of them. Had you
played with Castlewood, you would have had no such luck :
and you imM have played, had not an old aunt of yours
w^amed my Lord Castlewood to keep his hands off you.’
* What, ma’am, did you interfere to preserve me ? ’
‘ I kept his clutches off from you : be thankful that you
are come out of that ogre’s den with any flesh on your
bones ! My dear, it has been the rage and passion of all
our family. My poor siUy brother played ; both his wives
played, especially the last one, who has little else to live
upon now but her nightly assemblies in London, and the
money for the cards. I would not trust her at Castlewood
alone with you : the passion is too strong for them, and
they would fall upon you, and fleece you ; and then fall
upon each other, and fight for the plunder. But for his
place about the Court my poor nephew hath nothing, and
that is Will’s fortune too, sir, and Maria’s and her sister’s.’
‘ And are they, too, fond of the cards ? ’
‘ No ; to do poor Molly justice, gaming is not her pas-
sion : but w’hen she is amcmgst them in London, little
Fanny wdU bet her eyes out of her head. I know what the
pai^ion is, sir : do not look so astonished ; I have had it,
as I had the measles when I was a child. I am not cured
quite. For a poor old woman there is nothing left but
that. You will see some high play at my card-tables
to-night. Hush ! my dear ! It w^as that I wanted, and
without which I moped so at Castlewood ! I could not
win of my nieces or their mother. They w’ould not pay
if they lost. ’Tis best to warn you, my dear, in time,
lest you should be shocked by the discovery. I can’t live
without the cards, thei'e’s the truth ! ’
A few days before, and while staying with his Castle-
wood relatives, Harry, who loved cards, and cock-fighting,
and betting, and eve^ conceivable sport himself, w'ould
have laughed very likely at this confession. Amongst
FROM OAKHURST TO TUNBRIDGE
25S
that family into whose society he had fallen, many
things were laughed at, over w’hicli some folks looked
grave. Faith and honour were laughed at : pure lives
were disbelieved ; selfishness was proclaimed as common
practice ; sacred duties w^ere sneeringly spoken of, and vice
flippantly condoned. These were no Pharisees : they pro-
fessed no hypocrisy of virtue : they flung no stones at
discovered sinners : — ^they smiled, shrugged their shoulders,
and passed on. The members of this family did not
pretend to be a whit better than their neighbours, whom
they despised heartily ; they lived quite familiarly wath
the folks about whom and whose wives they told such
wicked, funny stories ; they took their share of what
pleasure or plunder came to hand, and lived from day to
day till their last day came for them. Of course there
are no such people now ; and human nature is very much
changed in the last hundred years. At any rate, card-
playing is greatly out of mode : about that there can be
no doubt : and very likely there are not six ladies of
fashion in London who know the difference between spadille
and manille.
‘ How dreadfully dull you must have found those hum-
drum people at that village where we left you — but the
savages were very kind to you, child I ’ said Madame de
Bernstein, patting the young man’s cheek with her pretty
old hand.
‘ They were very kind ; and it was not at all dull, ma’am,
and I think they are some of the best people in the world,’
said Harry, with his face flushing up. His aunt’s tone
jarred upon him. He could not bear that any one should
speak or think lightly of the new friends whom he had
found. He did not want them in such company.
The old lady, imperious and prompt to anger, was about
to resent the check she had received, but a second thought
made her pause. ‘ Those two girls,’ she thought, ‘ a sick-
bed — ^an interesting stranger — of course he has been falling
in love with one of them.’ Madame Bernstein looked round
with a mischievous glance at Lady Maria, who entered the
room at this juncture.
254
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XXV
NEW ACQUAINTANCES
ousm Maeia made her appear-
ance, attended by a couple
of gardener’s boys bearing
baskets of flowers, with which
it was proposed to decorate
Madame de Bernstein’s draw-
ing-room against the arrival
of her ladyship’s company.
Three footmen in livery, gor-
geously laced with worsted,
set out twice as many card-
tables. A major-domo in
black and a bag, with fine
laced ruffles, and looking as
if he ought to have a sword
by his side, followed the
lackeys, bearing fasces of wax candles, which he placed,
a pair on each card-table, and in the silver sconces on the
wainscoted wall that was now gilt with the slanting rays
of the sun, as was the prospect of the green common b^ond,
with its rocks and clumps of trees and hous^ twinkling
in the sunshine. Groups of many-coloured figures in hoops
and powder and brocade saunt^^ over the green, and
dappled the plain with thdr sb&dows. On the other side
from the baroness’s windows you saw the Pantiles, where
a perpetual fair was held, and heard the clatter and buzzing
of the company. A band of music was here performing
for the benefit of the visitors to the Wells. Madame
Bernstein’s chief sitting-room might not suit a recluse or
a student, but for those who liked bustle, gaiety, a bright
cross light, and a view of all that was going on in the
cheery busy place, no lodging could be pleasanter. And
when the windows were lighted up, the passengers walking
below were aware that her ladyship was at home and
holding a card assembly, to which an introduction was
easy enough. By the way, in speaking of the past, I think
the night-life of society* a hundred years since was rather
NEW ACQUAINTANCES
255
a dark life. There was not one wax candle for ten which
we now see in a lady’s drawing-room : let alone gas and
the wondrous new illuminations of clubs. Horrible gutter-
ing tallow smoked and stunk in passages. The candle-
snuffer was a notorious officer in the theatre. See Hogarth’s
pictures : how dark they are, and how his feasts are as it
were begrimed ^nth tallow ! In Marriage d la Mode, in
Lord Viscount Squanderfield’s grand saloons, where he and
his wife are sitting yavraing before the horror-stricken
steward when their party is over — there are but eight
candles — one on each card-table, and half a dozen in a brass
chandelier. If Jack Briefless convoked his friends to oysters
and beer in his chambers, Pump Court, he would have
twice as many. Let us comfort ourselves by thinking that
Louis Quatorze in all his glory held his revels in the dark,
and bless Mr. Price and other Luciferous benefactors of
mankind, for banishing the abominable mutton of our
youth.
So Maria with her flowers (herself the fairest flower)
popped her roses, sweetwilliams, and so forth, in vases here
and there, and adorned the apartment to the best of her art.
She lingered fondly over this bowl and that dragon jar,
casting but sly timid glances the while at young cousin
Harry, whose own blush would have become any young
woman, and you might have thought that she possibly
intended to outstay her aunt ; but that baroness, seated
in her arm-chair, her crooked tortoise-shell stick in her
hand, pointed the servants imperiously to their duty :
rated one and the other soundly : Tom for having a dam
in his stocking ; John for having greased his locks too
profusely out of the candle-box ; and so forth — ^keeping
a stem domination over them. Another remark concerning
poor Jeames of a hundred years ago : Jeames slept two in
a bed, four in a room, and that room a cellar very likely,
and he washed in a trough such as you would hardly see
anywhere in London now out of the barracks of her Majesty’s
Foot Guards.
If Maria hoped a present interview, her fond heart was
disappointed. ‘ Where are you going to dine, Harry ? ’
asks Madame de Bernstein. ‘ My niece Maria and I shall
have a chicken in the little parlour — ^I think you should
go to the best ordinary. There is one at the ‘‘ White Horse”
at three, we shall hear his bell in a minute or two.. And
256
THE VIRGINIANS
you mil understand, sir, that you ought not to spare
expense, but behave like Princess Pocahontas’s son. Your
trunks have been taken over to the lodging I have engaged
for you. It is not good for a lad to be always hanging
about the aprons of two old w'omen. Is it, Maria ? ’
‘ No,’ says her ladyship, dropping her meek eyes : whilst
the other lady’s glared in triumph. I think Andromeda
had been a good deal exposed to the Dragon in the course
of the last five or six days : and if Perseus had cut the
latter’s cruel head off he would have committed not un-
justifiable monstricide. But he did not bear sword or
shield; he only looked mechanically at the lackeys in
tawny and blue as they creaked about the room.
‘ there are good mercers and tailors from London
always here to wait on the company at the Wells. You
had better see them, my dear, for your suit is not of the
very la^t fashion — a little lace ’
‘ I can’t go out of mourning, ma’am,’ said the young
man, looking down at his sables.
‘ Ho, sir,’ cried the lady, rustling up from her chair and
rising on her cane, * wear black for your brother till you
are as old as Methuselah, if you like. I am sure I don’t
want to prevent you. I only want you to dress, and to
do like other people, and make a figure worthy of your
name.’
‘ Madam,’ said Mr. Warrington with great state, ‘ I have
not done anything to disgrace it that I know.’
Why did the old woman stop, and give a little start
as if she had been struck I bygones be bygones.
She and the boy had a score of little passages of this kind
in which swords were crossed and thrusts rapidly dealt or
parried. She liked Harry none the worse for h^ courage
in facing her. * Sure a little finer linen than that shirt
you wear will not be a disgrace to you, sir,’ she said, with
rather a forced laugh.
Harry bowed and blushed. It was one of the homely
gifts of his Oakhurst friends. He felt pleased somehow
to think he wore it ; thought of the new friends, so good,
so pure, so simple, so kindly, with immense tenderness,
and felt, w^hile invested in this garment, as if evil could
not touch him. He said he would go to his lodging, and
make a point of returning arrayed in the best linen he had.
‘ Come hack here, sir,’ said Madame Bernstein, ‘ and if
NEW ACQUAINTANCES
257
our company has not arrived, Maria and I will find some
ruffles for you ! ’ And herewith, under a footman’s guidance,
the young fellow walked off to his new lodgings.
Harry found not only handsome and spacious apartments
provide for him, but a groom in attendance waiting to
be engaged by his honour, and a second valet, if he w^as
inclined to hire one to wait upon Mr. Gumbo. Ere he
had been many minutes in his rooms, emissaries from
a London tailor and bootmaker waited on him with the cards
and compliments of their employers, Messrs. Regnier and
Tuil ; the best articles in his modest wardrobe w^ere laid
out by Gumbo, and the finest linen with w^hich hk thrifty
Virginian mother had provided him. Visions of the snow-
surrounded home in his own country, of the crackling
logs and the trim quiet ladies working by the fire, rose up
b^ore him. Eor the first time a little thought that the
homely clothes were not quite smart enough, the home-
worked linen not so fine as it might be, crossed the young
man’s mind. That he should be ashamed of anything
belonging to him or to Castlewood ! That was strange.
The simple folks there were only too well satisfied with
aU things that were done, or said, or produced at Castle-
wood ; and Madam Esmond, when she sent her son forth
on his travels, thought no young nobleman need he better
provided. T^e clothes might have fitted better and been
of a later fashion, to be sure — but still, the young fellow
presented a comely figure enough when he issued from his
apartments, his toilette over ; and Gumbo, calling a chair,
marched beside it, until they reached the ordinary where
the young gentleman was to dine.
Here he expected to find the beau whose acquaintance
he had made a few hours before at his aunt’s lodging,
and who had indicated to Harry that the ‘ White Horse ’
was the most modish place for dining at the Wells, and
he mentioned his friend’s name to the host : but the land-
lord and waiters, leading him into the room with many
smiles and bows, assured his honour that his honour did
not need any other introduction than his own, helped him
to hang up his coat and sword on a peg, asked him whether
he would drink burgundy, pontac, or champagne to his
dinner, and led him to a table.
Though the most fashionable ordinary in the village, the
' White Horse ’ did not happen to be crowded on this day.
VIRGINIANS K
?58
THE VIRGINIANS
Monsieur Barbeau, the landlord, informed Harry that there
^as a great entertainment at Summer Hill, which had
taken away most of the company ; indeed, when Harry
entered the room, there were but four other gentlemen in
it. Two of these guests were drinking wine, and had
finished their dinner : the other two were young men in
the midst of their meal, to whom the landlord, as he passed,
must have whispered the name of the new-comer, for they
looked at him with some appearance of interest, and made
him a slight bow across the table as the smiling host bustled
away for Harry's dinner.
Mr. VP’arrington returned the salute of the two gentle-
men who bade him welcome to Tunbridge, and hoped he
would like the place upon better acquaintance. Then they
smiled and exchanged waggish looks with each other, of
which Harry did not understand the meaning, nor why
they cast knowing glances at the two other guests over
their wine.
One of these persons was in a somewhat tarnished velvet
coat with a huge queue and bag, and voluminous ruffles
and embroidery. The other was a little beetle-browed,
hook-nosed, high-shouldered gentleman, whom his opposite
companion addressed as milor, or my lord, in a very high
vcmce. My lord, who was sipping the wine before him,
barely glanced at the new-comer, and then addressed
himself to his own companion.
‘ And so you know the nephew of the oM woman — ^iJie
Croesus who comes to arrive ? '
^ You’re thrown out there, Jack ! ’ says one young gentle-
man to the other.
"Never could mansage the lingo,’ said Jack. The two
elders had begun to speak in the French language.
" But assuredly, my dear lord ! ’ says the gentleman with
the long queue.
‘ You have ^own energy, my dear baron ! He has been
here but two hours. My people told me of him only as
I came to dinner.’
‘ I knew him before ! — ^I have met him often in London
with the baroness and my lord, his cousin,’ said the baron.
A smoking soup for Harry here came in, borne by the
smiling host, ‘ Behold, sir 1 Behold a potage of my
fadiion I ’ says my landlord, laying down the dish and
whispermg to Harry the celebrated name of the nobleman
NEW ACQUAINTANCES
259
opposite, Harry thanked Monsieur Barbeau in his o\\*n
language, upon which the foreign gentleman, turning round,
grinned most graciously at Harry, and said, ‘ Fous bossedez
notre langue barfaidement, monsieur.’ Mr. Warrington had
never heard the French language pronounced in that manner
in Canada. He bowed in return to the foreign gentleman.
‘ Tell me more about the Croesus, my good baron,’ con-
tinued his lordship, speaking rather superciliously to his
companion, and taking no notice of Harry, which perhaps
somew^hat nettled the young man.
‘ What will you that I tell you, my dear lord ? Croesus
is a youth like other youths ; he is tall, like other youths ;
he is awkward, like other youths ; he has black hair, as
they all have who come from the Indies. Lodgings have
been taken for him at Mrs. Rose’s toy-shop.’
‘I have lodgings there, too,’ thought Mr. Warrington.
‘ Who is Croesus they are talking of ? How good the
soup is ! ’
‘ He travels with a large retinue,’ the baron continued,
‘four servants, two post-chaises, and a pair of outriders.
His chief attendant is a black man who saved his life
from the savages in America, and w’ho will not hear, on
any account, of being made free. He persists in wearing
mourning for his elder brother from whom he inherits his
principality.’
‘ Could anything console you for the death of yours,
chevalier ? ’ cried out the elder gentleman.
‘ Milor ! His property might,’ said the chevalier, ‘ which
you know is not small.’
‘ Your brother lives on his patrimony — which you have told
me is immense — ^you by your industry, my dear chevalier.’
‘ Milor ! ’ cries the individual addressed as chevalier,
‘ By your industry or your esprit, — how much more
noble ! Shall you be at the baroness’s to-night ? She
ought to be a little of your parents, chevalier ? ’
‘Again I fail to comprehend your lordship,’ said the
other gentleman, rather sulkily.
‘ Why, she is a woman of great wit — she is of noble
birth — she has undergone strange adventures — she has but
little principle (there you happily have the advantage of
her). But what care we men of the world ? You intend
to go and play with the young Creole, no doubt, and get
as much money from him as you can. By the w'^ay, baron,
260
THE VIRGINIANS
suppose tie should be a guet-a^pens, that young Creole ?
Suppose our excellent friend has invented him up in London,
and brings Mm down with his character for wealth to prey
upon the innocent folks here ? ’
‘ J’y ai souvent pense, my lor,’ says the little baron,
placing his j&nger to his nose very knowingly, ‘ that baroness
is capable of anything.’
baron — a baroness, que voulez-vous ? my friend.
I mean the late lamented husband. Do you know who
he was ? ’
‘ Intimately. A more notorious villain never dealt a card.
At Venice, at Brussels, at Spa, at Vienna — ^the jails of
every one of which places he knew. I knew the man,
my lord.’
‘ I thought you would. I saw Mm at the Hague, where
I first had the honour of mating you, and a more dis-
reputable rogue never entered my doors, A minister must
open them to aU sorts of people, baron, — spies, sharpers,
ruffians of every sort.’
‘ Parbleu, milor, how you treat them 1 ’ says my lord’s
companion.
‘A man of my rank, my friend — of the rank I held
then — of course, must see Ml sorts of people — entre avtres
your acquaintance. What Ms wife could want with such
a name as his I can’t conceive.’
‘ Apparently, it was better than the lady’s own.’
‘ Effectively ! So I have heard of my friend Paddy
changing clothes with the scarecrow. I don’t know which
name is the most distinguished, that of the English bishop
or the German baron.’
‘ My lord,’ cried the other gentleman, rising and laying
his hand on a large star on his coat, ‘you forget that
I, too, am a baron and a Chevalier of the Holy Roman ’
‘ — ^Order of the Spur ! — ^not in the least, my dear knight
and baron ! You will have no more wine ? We shall meet
at Madame de Bernstein’s to-night.’ The knight and baron
quitted the table, felt in Ms embroidered pockets, as if for
money to give the waiter, who brought Mm Ms great laced
hat, and waving that menial off with a hand surrounded
by large ruffles and blazing rings, he stalked away from
the room.
It was only when the person addressed as my lord had
begun to speak of the bishop’s widow and the German
. NEW ACQUAINTANCES
261
baron^s wife that Harry Warrington was aware how his
aunt and himself had been the subject of the two gentle-
men’s conversation. Ere the conviction had settled itself
on his mind, one of the speakers had quitted the room,
and the other turning to a table at which two gentlemen
sat, said, ‘ What a little sharper it is ! Everything I said
about Bernstein relates mvtaio nomine to him. I knew
the fellow to be a spy and a rogue. He has changed his
religion, I don’t know how many times. I had him turned
out of the Hague myself when I was ambassador, and
I know he was caned in Vienna.’
‘ I wonder my Lord Chesterfield associates with such
a villain ! ’ called out Har^ from his table. The other
couple of diners looked at him. To his surprise the noble-
man so addressed went on talking.
‘ There cannot be a more fieffe coquin than this Poellnitz.
Why, Heaven be thanked, he has actually left me my
snufi-box ! You laugh ? — ^the fellow is capable of taking
it : ’ and my lord thought it was his own satire at which
the young men were laughing.
‘ You are quite right, sir,’ said one of the two diners,
turning to Mr. Warrington, ‘ though, saving your presence,
I don’t know what business it is of yours. My lord "v^ill
play with anybody who will set him. Don’t be alarmed,
he is as deaf as a post, and did not hear a word that you
said ; and that’s why my lord will play with anybody
who will put a pack of cards before him, and that is the
reason why he consorts with this rogue.’
‘ Faith, I know other noblemen w-ho are not particular
as to their company,’ says Mr. Jack.
* Do you mean because I associate with you ? I know
my company, my good friend, and I defy most men to
have the better of me.’
Not having paid the least attention to Mr. Warrin^on’s
angry interruption, my lord opposite was talking in his
favourite French with Monsieur Barbeau, the landlord, and
graciously complimenting him on his dinner. The host
bowed again and again ; was enchanted that his excellency
was satisfied : had not forgotten the art which he had
learned when he was a young man in his excellency’s
kingdom of Ireland. The salmi was to my lord’s liking ?
He had just served a dish to the young American seigneur
who sat opposite, the gentleman from Virginia.
^62
THE VIRGINlAI^g
* To whom ? ’ My lord’s pale face became red for a
moment, as he asked this question, and looked towards
Harry Warrington opposite to him.
‘ To the young gentleman from Virginia who has just
arrived, and who perfectly possesses our beautiful lan-
guage ! ’ says Mr. Barbeau, thinking to kill two birds, as
it were, with this one stone of a compliment.
^ And to whom your lordship will be answerable for
language reflecting upon my family, and uttered in the
presence of these gentlemen,’ cried out Mr. Warrington,
at the top of his voice, determined that his opponent
should hear.
‘ You must go and call into his ear, and then he may
perchance hear you,’ said one of the younger guests.
‘ I will take care that his lordship shall understand my
meaning, one way or other,’ Mr. Warrington said, with
much dignity : ^ and will not suffer calumnies regarding
my relatives to be uttered by him or any other man ! ’
Whilst Harry was speaking, the little nobleman opposite
to him did not hear him, but had time sufl&cient to arrange
his own reply. He had risen, passing his handkerchief
once or twice across his mouth, and laying his slim fingers
on the table. ‘ Sir,’ said he, ‘ you will believe, on the
word of a gentleman, that I had no idea before whom
I w^as speaking, and it seems that my acquaintance. Mon-
sieur de Poellnitz, knew you no better than myself. Had
I known you, believe me that I should have been the last
man in the w^orld to utter a syllable that should give you
annoyance ,* and I tender you my regrets, and apologies
before my Lord March and fc. Morris here present.’
To these words, Mr. Warrington could only make a bow,
and mumble out a few words of acknowledgement : which
speech having made believe to hear, my lord made Harry
another very profound bow, and saying he should have the
honour of waiting upon Mr. Warrington at his lodgings,
saluted the company, and went away.
263
CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH WE ABE AT A VEEY GEEAT DISTANCE FEOM OAHHITEST
It f ^ iTHDsT the precinct of the ‘White
Horse ’ Tavern, and coming up to
the windows of the eating-room,
was a bowling-green, with a table
or two, where guests might sit and
partake of punch or tea. The
three gentlemen having come to
an end of their dinner about the
same time, Mr. Morris proposed
that they should adjourn to the
green, and there drink a cool
bottle. ‘ Jack Morris would ad-
journ to the dust-hole, as a pre-
text for a fresh drink,’ said my
lord. On which Jack said he sup-
posed each gentleman had his own
favourite way of going to the
deuce. His weakness, he owned, was a bottle.
‘ My Lord Chesterfield’s deuce is deuce-ace,’ says my Lord
March . ‘ His lordship can’t keep away from the cards or dice.’
‘ My Lord March has not one devil, but several devils.
He loves gambling, he loves horse-racing, he loves betting,
he loves drinking, he loves eating, he loves money, he loves
women ; and you have fallen into bad company, Mr. War-
rington, when you lighted upon his lordship. He will play
you for every acre you have in Virginia.’
‘ With the greatest pleasure in life, Mr. Warrington ! ’
interposes my lord.
‘ ,^d for all your tobacco, and for all your spices, and
for all your slaves, and for all your oxen and asses, and
for everything that is yours.’
‘ Shall we begin now ? Jack, you are never without
a dice-box or a bottle-screw. I will set Mr. Warrington
for what he likes.’
‘ Unfortunately, my lord, the tobacco, and the slaves,
and the asses, and the oxen, are not mine, as yet. I am
just of age, and my mother, scarce twenty years older,
has quite as good chance of long life as I have.’
‘ I will bet you that you survive her. I will pay you
264
THE VIRGINIANS
a sum now against four times the sum to be paid at her
death. I wih set you a fair sum over this table against
the reversion of your estate in Virginia at the old lady’s
departure. What do you call your place ? ’
‘ Castlewood.’
* A principality, I hear it is. I will bet that its value
has been exaggerated ten times at least amongst the quid-
nuncs here. How came you by the name of Castlewood ? —
you are related to my lord ? Oh, stay, I know — my lady,
your mother, descends from the real head of the house.
He took the losing side in ’jSfteen. I have had the story
a dozen times from my old duchess. She knew your
grandfather. He was friend of Addison and Steele, and
Pope and Milton, I dare say, and the bigwigs. It is a pity
he did not stay at home, and transport the other branch of
the family to the plantations.’
‘ I have just been staying at Castlewood with my cousin
there,’ remarked Mr. Warrington.
* Hm 1 Did you play with him ? He’s fond of paste-
board and bones.’
* Never, but for sixpence and a pool of commerce with
the ladies.’
‘ So much the better for both of you. But you played
with Will Esmond if he was at home ? I will lay ten to
one you played with Will Esmond ? ’
Harry blushed, and owned that of an evening his cousin
and he had had a few games at cards.
‘ And Tom Sampson, the chaplain,’ cried Jack Morris,
‘ was he of the party ? I wager that Tom made a third, and
the LfOrd deliver you from Tom and Will Esmond together! ’
‘ Nay ; the truth is, I won of both of them,’ said Mr.
Warrington.
‘ And they paid you ? Well, miracles will never cease ! ’
* I did not say anything about miracles,’ remarked
Mr. Harry, smiling over his wine.
‘ And you don’t tell tales out of school ^ — and so much
the better, Mr. Warrington ? ’ says my lord.
‘ If Mr. Warrington has been to school to Lord Castle-
wood and WiE Esmond, your tutors must have cost you
a pretty penny. Mustn’t they, March ? ’ ^
^ These numerals m the text refer to words or passages in the
first e^tion, subsequently omitted or altered, which will be found
restored in the Appendix.
AT A DISTANCE FROM OAKHUBST
2m
‘ Must they, Morris ? ’ ^ said my lord, as if he only half
liked the other’s familiarity.
Both of the two gentlemen were dr^sed alike, in small
scratch-mgs without powder, in blue frocks with plate
buttons, in buckskins, and riding-boots, in little hats with
a narrow cord of lace, and no outw'ard mark of fashion.
" I don’t care for indoor games ^ much, my lord,’ says
Harry, warming with his wine ; ‘ but I should like to go
to Newanarket, and long to see a good English hunting-
field.’
‘ We will show you Newmarket and the hunting-field,
sir. Can you ride pretty well ? ’
‘ I think I can,’ Harry said ; ‘ and I can shoot pretty
well, and jump some.’
‘ What’s your weight ? I bet you we weigh even, or
I weigh most. I bet you Jack Morris beats you at birds
or a mark, at five-and-twenty paces. I bet you I jump
farther than you on flat ground, here on this green.’
‘ I don’t know Mr. Morris’s shooting — I never saw either
gentleman before — but I take your bets, my lord, at what
you please,’ cries Harry, who by this time was more than
warm with burgundy.
‘ Ponies on each ! ’ cried my lord.
‘ Done and done ! ’ cried my lord and Harry together.
The young man thought it was for the honour of his country
not to be ashamed of any bet made to him.
‘ We can try the last bet now, if your feet are pretty
steady,’ said my lord, springing up, stretching his arms
and limbs, and looking at the crisp dry grass. He drew
his boots off, then his coat and waistcoat, buckling his
belt round his waist, and flinging his clothes down to the
ground.
Harry had more respect for his garments. It was his
best suit. He took off the velvet coat and waistcoat,
folded them up daintily, and, as the two or three tables
round were slopped with drink, went to place the clothes
on a table in the eating-room, of which the windows were
open.
Here a new guest had entered ; and this was no other
than Mr. Wolfe, who was soberly eating a chicken and
salad, with a modest pint of wine. Harry was in high
spirits. He told the colonel he had a bet with my Lord
March — ^would Colonel WoKe stand him halves ? The
£ 3
266
THE VliU^INIANS
colonel said he was too poor to bet. Would he come out
and see fair play ? That he would with all his heart.
Colonel Wolfe set down his glass, and stalked through the
open window after his young friend.
‘ Who is that tallow-faced Put with the carroty hair ? ’
says Jack Morris, on whom the burgundy had had its due
effect.
Mr. Warrington- explained that this was Lieutenant-
Colonel Wolfe, of the 20th Regiment.
‘ Your humble servant, gentlemen I ’ says the colonel,
making the company a rigid military bow.
* Never saw such a figure in my life,’ cries Jack Morris.
‘ Did you — ^March ? ’
‘ I beg your pardon, I think you said March ? ’ -said the
colonel, looking very much surprised.
‘I am the Earl of March, sir, at Colonel Wolfe’s ser-
vice,’ said the nobleman, bowing. ‘ My friend, Mr. Morris,
is so intimate with me, that, after dinner, we are quite like
brothers.’
Why is not all Tunbridge Wells by to hear this ? thought
Morris. And he was so delighted that he shouted out,
‘ Two to one on my lord ! ’
‘ Done ! ’ calls out Mr. Warrington ; and the enthusiastic
Jack was obliged to cry ‘ Done ! ’ too.
‘ Take him, colonel,’ Harry whispers to his friend.
But the colonel said he could not afford to lose, and there-
fore could not hope to win. ;
‘ I see you have won one of our bets already, Mr. Warring-
ton,’ my Lord March remarked. ‘ I am taller than you by
an inch or two, but you are broader round the shoulders.’
‘ Pooh, my dear Will ! I bet you you weigh tmce as much
as he does ! ’ cries Jack Morris.
‘ Done, Jack ! ’ says my lord, laughing. ‘ The bets are
all ponies. Will you take him, Mr. Warrington ? ’
‘ No, my dear fellow — one’s enough,’ says Jack.
‘ Very good, my dear fellow,’ says my lord ; ‘ and now we
will settle the other wager.’
Having already array^ himself in his best silk stockings,
black satin-net breeches, and neatest pumps, Harry did not
care to take off his shoes as his antagonist had done, whose
heavy riding-boots and spurs were, to be sure, little
calculated for leaping. They had before them a fine even
green turf of some thirty yards in length, enough for a run
AT A DISTANCE FKOM OAKHURST
267
and enough for a jump. A gravel-walk ran around this
green, beyond which was a -wall and gate.-sign — a field
azure, bearing the Hanoverian White Horse rampant
between two skittles proper, and for motto the name of
the landlord and of the animal depicted.
My lord’s friend laid a handkerchief on the ground as the
mark whence the leapers were to take their jump, and
Mr. Wolfe stood at the other end of the grass-plat to note
the spot where each came down. ‘My lord went first,’
writes Mr. Warrington, in a letter to Mrs. Mountain, at
Castlewood, Virginia, still extant. ‘ He was for having me
take the lead ; but, remembering the story about the
Battel of Fontanoy which my dearest George used to tell,
I says, “ Monseigneur le Comte, tirez le premier, s’il vous
play.” So he took his run in his stocken-feet, and for the
honour of Old Virginia, I had the gratafacation of beating
his lordship by more than two feet — viz., two feet nine
inches — ^me jumping twenty-one feet three inches, by the
drawer’s measured St-pe, and his lordship only eighteen six.
I had won from him about my weight before {which I knew
the moment I set my eye upon him). So he and Mr, Jack
paid me these two hetts. And with my best duty to my
mother — she will not be displeased with me, for I bett
for the hcmor of the Old Dominion, and my opponent w^as
a nobleman of the first quality, himself holding two Erldomes,
and heir to a duke, lotting is all the rage here, and the
bloods and young fellows of fashion are betting away from
morning till night.
‘ I told them — and that w^as my mischief perhaps — ^that
there was a gentleman at home who could beat me by
a good foot ; and when they asked who it was, and I said
Col. G. Washington, of Moimt Vernon — as you know he can,
and he’s the only man in his county or mine that can do
it — ^Mr. Wolfe asked me ever so many questions about
Col. G. W., and showed that he had heard of him, and
talked over last year’s unha'p'py campane as if he knew
every inch of the ground, and he knew the names of all our
rivers, only he called the Potow’mac Pottamac, at which
we had a good laugh at him. My Lord of March and Ruglen
was not in the least ill humour about losing, and he and his
friend handed me notes out of their pocket-books, which
filled mine that was getting very empty, for the vales to the
servants at my cousin Castlewood’s house and buying
268
THE VIRGINIANS
a horse at Oakhurst have very nearly put me on the neces-
sity of making another draft upon my honoured mother or
her London or Bristol agent/
These feats of activity over, the four gentlemen now
strolled out of the tavern garden into the public walk, where,
by this time, a great deal of company was assembled ; upon
whom Mr. Jack, who was of a frank and free nature, with
a loud voice, chose to make remarks that were not always
agreeable. And here, if my Lord March made a joke,
of which his lordship was not sparing, Jack roared, ‘ Oh,
ho, ho 1 Oh, good Gad 1 Oh, my dear earl ! Oh, my dear
lord, you’ll be the death of me ! ’ ‘It seemed as if he
wished everybody to know,’ writes Harry sagaciously to
Mrs. Mountain, ‘ that his friend and companion was an Brl ! ’
There was, indeed, a great variety of characters who
passed. M. Poellnitz, no finer dressed than he had been at
dinner, grinned, and saluted with his great laced hat and
tarnished feathers. Then came by my Lord Chesterfield, in
a pearl-coloured suit, with his blue ribbon and star, and
saluted the young men in his turn.
‘ I will back the old boy for taking his hat off against the
whole kingdom, and France, either,’ says my Lord March.
‘ He has never changed the shape of that hat of his for
twenty years. Look at it. There it goes again ! Do
you see that great, big, awkw^ard, pock-marked, snuff-
coloured man, w^ho hardly touches his clumsy beaver in
reply. D — his confound^ impudence — do you ipiow who
that is ? ’
‘ No, curse him ! Who is it, March ? ’ asks Jack, with an
oath.
* It’s one Johnson, a Dictionary-maker, about whom my
Lord Chesterfield wrote some most capital papers, w^hen his
dixonary was coming out, to patronize the fellow. I know
they were capital. I’ve heard Horry Walpole say so, and
he knows all about that kind of thing. Confound the
impudent schoolmaster ! ’
‘ Hang him, he ought to stand in the pillory ! ’ roars Jack
‘That fat man he’s walking with is another of your
writing fellows, — printer, — ^his name is Richardson ; he
wrote Clarissa, you know.’
‘ Great Heavens 1 my lord, is that the great Richardson ?
Is that the man who wrote Clarissa ? ’ called out Colonel
Wolfe and Mr. Warrington, in a breath.
AT A DISTANCE FROM OAKHURST
271
Harry ran forward to look at the old gentleman toddling
along the walk with a train of admiring ladies surround-
ing him.
‘ Indeed, my very dear sir,’ one was saying, ‘ you are too
great and good to five in sudh a world ; but sure you were
sent to teach it virtue ! ’
‘ Ah, my Miss Mulso ! Who shall teach the teacher ? ’
said the good, fat old man, raising a kind, round face
skywards. ‘ Even he has his faults and errors ! Even
his age and experience does not prevent him from stumbl —
Heaven bless my soul, Mr. Johnson ! I ask your pardon
if I have trodden on your corn.’
‘You have done both, sir. You have trodden on the
corn and received the pardon,’ said Mr. Johnson, and went
on mumbling some verses, S'waying to and fro, his ey^
turned towards the ground, his hands behind him, and
occasionally endangering with his great stick the honest,
meek eyes of his companion-author.
‘ They do not see very well, my dear Mulso,’ he says to the
young lady, ‘ but such as they are, I would keep my ktsh
from Mr. Johnson’s cudgel. Your servant, sir.’ Here he
made a low bow, and took off his hat to Mr. Warrington, who
shrank back with many blushes, after saluting the great
author. The great author was accustomed to be adored.
A gentler wind never puffed mortal vanity. Enraptured
spinsters flung tea-leaves round him, and incensed him with
the coffee-pot. Matrons kissed the slippers they had
worked for him. There was a halo of virtue round his
nightcap. All Europe had thrilled, panted, admired,
trembl^, wept, over the pages of the immortal, little,
kind, honest man with the round paunch, Harry came
back quite glowing and proud at having a bow from
him, ‘ Ah I ’ says he, ‘ my lord, I am glad to have seen
him ! ’
‘ Seen him I why, dammy, you may see him any day in
his shop, I suppose ? ’ says Jack, with a laugh.
‘ My brother declared that he, and Mr. Fielding, I think,
was the name, were the greatest geniuses in England ; and
often used to say, that when we came to Europe, his first
pilgrimage would be to Mr. Richardson,’ cried Harry, always
impetuous, honest, and tender, when he spoke of the dearest
friend.
‘ Your brother spoke like a man/ cried Mr. Wolfe, too.
272
THE VIRGINIANS
his pale face likewise flushing up. ‘I would rather be
a man of genius, than a peer of the realm.’
^ Every man to his taste, colonel,’ says my lord, much
amused. ‘ Your enthusiasm — I don’t mean anything
personal — ^refreshes me, on my honour it does.’
‘ So it does me — by gad — ^perfectly refreshes me,’ cries
Jack.
‘ So it does Jack — ^you see — ^it actually refreshes Jack !
I say, Jack, which would you rather be ? — a fat old printer,
who has written a story about a confounded girl and a fellow
that ruins her, — or a peer of Parliament with ten thousand
a year ? ’
^ March — ^my Lord March, do you take me for a fool ? ’
says Jack, with a tearful voice. ‘ Have I done anything
to deserve this language from you ? ’
‘ I would rather win honour than honours : I would
rather Iwuve genius than wealth. I would rather make my
name than inherit it, though my father’s, thank Gk)d, is an
honest one,’ said the young colonel. ‘But pardon me,
gentlemen,’ and here making them a hasty salutation, he
ran across the parade towards a young and elderly My,
and a gentleman, who were now advancing.
‘ It is the beautiful Miss Lowther. I remember now,’
says my lord. ‘ See ! he takes her arm ! The report is,
he is engaged to her.’
‘ You don’t mean to say such a fellow is engaged to any
of the Lowthers of the North ? ’ cries out Jack. ‘ Cume me,
what is the world come to, with your printers, and your
half-pay ensigns, and your schoolmasters, and your
infernal nonsense f ’
The Dictionary-maker, who had shown so little desire
to bow to my Lord Chesterfield, when that famous noble-
man courteously saluted him, was here seen to take off his
beaver, and bow almost to the ground before a florid per-
sonage in a large round hat, with bands and a gown, who
made his appearance in the "Walk. This was my Lord
Bishop of Sal^bury, wearing complacently the blue
ribbon and badge of the Garter, of which Noble Order
his lordship was prdate.
Mr. Johnson stood, hat in hand, during the whole time
of his conversation with Dr. Gilbert ; who made many
flattering and benedictory remarks to Mr. Richardson,
declaring that he was the supporter of virtue, the preacher
AT A DISTANCE FROM OAKHURST
273
of sound morals, the mainstay of religion, of all *tt"hich
points the honest printer himself was perfectly con-
vinced.
Do not let any young lady trip to her grandpapa’s book-
case in consequence of this eulogium, and rashly take down
Clarissa from the shelf. She would not care to read the
volumes, over which her pretty ancestresses wept and
thrilled a hundred years ago ; which were commended by
divines from pulpits, and belauded all Europe over. I
wonder, are our women more virtuous than their grand-
mothers, or only more squeamish ? If the former, then
Miss Smith of New York is certainly more modest than
Miss Smith of London, who still does not scruple to say,
that tables, pianos, and animals have legs. Oh, my faithful,
good old Samuel Richardson I Hath the ne^ yet reached
thee in Hades, that thy sublime novels are huddled away in
corners, and that our daughters may no more read Clarissa
than Tom Jones ? Go up, Samuel, and be reconciled with
thy brother scribe, whom in life thou didst hate so. I w’onder
whether a century hence the novels of to-day will be hidden
behind locks and wires, and make pretty little maidens
blush.
* Who is yonder queer person in the high head-dress of
my grandmother’s time, who stops and speaks to Mr.
Richardson ? ^ asked Harry, as a fantastically-dressed lady
came up, and performed a curtsy and a compliment to the
bowing printer.
Jack Morris nervously struck Harry a blow in the side
with the butt-end .of his whip. Lord March laughed.
^ Yonder queer person is my gracious kinswoman,
Katharine, Duchess of Dover and Queensberry, at your
service, Mr. Warrington. She was a beauty once ! She
is changed now, isn’t she ? What an old Gorgon it is !
She is a great patroness of your bookmen ; and when
that old frump was young, they actually made verses
about her.’
The earl quitted his friends for a moment to make his bow
to the old duchess, Jack Morris explaining to Mr. Warrington
how, at the duke’s death, my Lord of March and Ruglen
would succeed to his cousin’s dukedoms.
‘ I suppose,’ says Harry, simply, ‘ his lordship is here in
attendance upon the old lady ? ’
Jack burst into a loud laugh.
274
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Oh, yes ! very much ! exactly ! * says he. ‘Why, my
dear fellow, you don’t mean to say you haven’t heard about
the little opera-dancer ? ’
" I am but lately arrived in England, Mr. Morris,’ said
Harry, with a smile, ‘ and in Virginia, I own, we have not
heard much about the little opera-dancer.’
Luckily for us, the secret about the little opera-dancer
never was revealed, for the young men’s conversation was
interrupted by a lady in a cardinal cape, and a hat by no
means unlike those lovely headpieces which have returned
into vogue a hundred years after the date of our present
history, who made a profound curtsy to the two gentlemen,
and received their salutation in return. She stopped
opposite to Harry ; she held out her hand rather to his
wonderment ;
‘ Have you so soon forgotten me, Mr. Warrington ? ’
she said.
Off went Harry’s hat in an instant. He started, blushed,
stammered, and called out, ‘ Good Heavens ! ’ as if tiiiere had
been any celestial wonder in the circumstance I It was
Lady Maria come out for a walk. He had not been thinking
about her. She was, to say truth, for the moment so
utterly out of the young gentleman’s mind, that her sudden
re-entry there and appearance in the body startled Mr.
Warrington’s faculties, and caused those gmlty blushes to
crowd into his cheeks.
No. He was not even thinking of her ! - A week ago —
a year, a hundred years ago it seemed-— he would not have
been surprised to meet her anywhere. Appearing from
amidst darkling shrubberies, gliding over green garden
terraces, loitering on stairs, or corridors, hovering even in
his 4:eams, all day or all night, bodily or spiritually, he had
been accustomed to meet her. A week ago his heart used
to beat. A week ago, and at the very instant when he
jumped out of his sleep there was her idea smiling on him.
And it was only last Tuesday that his love was stabbed and
slain, and he not only had left off mourning for her, but had
forgotten her !
‘ You will come and walk with me a little ? ’ she said.
* Or would you like the music best ? I dare say you will
like the music best.’
' You know,’ said Harry, ‘ I don’t care about any music
much, except ’ — he was thinking of the Evening Hymn —
AT A DISTANCE FROM OAKHURST
275
‘ except of your playing.’ He turned very red again as
he spoke, he felt he was perjuring himself horribly.
The poor lady was agitated herself by the flutter and
agitation which she saw in her young companion. Gracious
Heaven 1 Could that tremor and excitement mean that
she was mistaken, and that the lad was still faithful ?
‘ Give me your arm, and let us take a little walk,’ she said,
waving round a curtsy to the other two gentlemen :
‘ my aunt is asleep after her dinner.’ Harry could not
but offer the arm, and press the hand that lay against his
heart. Maria made another fine curtsy to Harry’s bowing
companions, and walked off with her prize. In her griefs,
in her rages, in the pains and anguish of wrong and deser-
tion, how a woman remembers to smile, curtsy, caress,
dissemble ! How resolutely they discharge the social pro-
prieties ; how they have a word, or a hand, or a kind
little speech or reply for the passing acquaintance who
crosses unknowing the path of the tragedy, drops a light
airy remark or two (happy self-satisfied rcgue !), and
passes on. He passes on, and thinks : ‘ That woman was
rather pleased with what I said. That joke I made was
rather neat. I do really think Lady Maria looks rather
favourably at me, and she’s a dev’lish fine woman, begad
she is I ’ O you wiseacre ! Such was Jack Morris’s
observation and case as he walked away, leaning on the arm
of his noble friend; and thinking the whole sodiety the
Wells was looking at him. He had made mim exquisite
remarks about a particular run of cards at Lady Flushing-
ton’s the night before, and Lady Maria had replied graciously
and neatly, and so away went Jack perfectly happy.
The absurd creature I I declare we know nothing of
anybody (hut that, for my part, I know better and better
every day). You enter smiling to see your new acquaint-
ance, Mrs. A. and her charming family. You make your
bow in the elegant drawing-room of Mr. and Mrs. B. ?
I tell you that in your course through life you are for ever
putting your great clumsy foot upon the mute invisible
wounds of bleeding tragedies. Mrs, B.’s closets, for what
you know, are stuffed with skeletons. Look there under
the sofa-cushion. Is that merely missy’s doll, or is it the
limb of a stifled Cupid peeping out ? What do you suppose
are those ashes smouldering in the grate ? — Very likely
a suttee has been offered up there just before you came in :
276
THE VIRGINIANS
a faithful heart has been burned out upon a callous corpse,
and you are looking on the cirteri doloso. You see B. and
his wife receiving their company before dinner. Gracious
powers ! Do you know that that bouquet which she wears
is a signal to Captain C., and that he will find a note under
the little bronze Shakespeare on the mantelpiece in the
study ? And with all this you go up and say some un-
commonly neat thing (as you fancy) to Mrs. B. about the
weather (clever dog !), or about Lady E.’s last party
(fashionable buck !), or about the dear children in the
nursery (insinuating rogue !). Heaven and earth, my good
sir, how can you tell that B. is not going to pitch all the
children out cf the nursery window this very night, or that
his lady not made an arrangement for leaving them,
and running off with the captain ? How do you know that
those footmen are not disguised bailiffs ? — that yonder
large-looking butler (reaUy a skeleton) is not the pawn-
broker’s man ? and that there are not skeleton rotis and
entrees under every one of the covers ? Look at their
feet peeping from under the tablecloth. Mind how you
stretch out your own lovely little slippers, madam, lest
you knock over a rib or two. Remark the Death’s-head
moths fluttering among the flowers. See the pale winding-
sheets gleaming in the wax-candles 1 I know it is an old
story, and especially that this preacher has yelled vanitas
mnitatum five hundred times before, I can’t help always
falling upon it, and cry out with particular loudness and
wailing, and become especially melancholy, when I see
a dead love tied to a live love. Ha ! I look up from my
desk, across the street : and there come in Mr. and Mrs. D.
from their walk in Kensington Gardens. How she hangs on
Mm ! how jolly and happy he looks, as the children frisk
round ! My poor dear benighted Mrs. D., there is a
Regent’s Park as well as a Kensington Gardens in the world.
Go in, fond wretch I Smilingly lay before Mm what you
know he likes for dinner. Show him the cMldren’s copies
and the reports of their masters. Go with missy to the
piano, and play your artless duet together; and fancy
you are happy !
There go Harry and Maria, taking their evening walk
on the common, away from the village wMch is waking
up from its after-dinner siesta, and where the people
are banning to stir and the music to play. With the
AT A DISTANCE FROM OAKHURST
277
music Maria knows Madame de Bernstein will waken : with
the candles she must be back to the tea-table and the cards.
Never mind. Here is a minute. It may be my love is
dead, but here is a minute to kneel over the grave and pray
by it. He certainly was not thinking about her : he was
startled and did not even know her. He was laughing
and talking with Jack Morris and my Lord March. He
is twenty years younger than she. Never mind. To-day
is to-day in which we are all equal. This moment is ours.
Come, let us walk a little way over the heath, Harry. She
will go, though she feels a deadly assurance that he will
tell her all is over between them, and that he lov^ the
dark-haired girl at Oakhurst.
CHAPTER XXVn
PLENUM OPUS ALBAE
m me hear about
those children,
child, whom I saw
running about at
the house where
they took you in,
poor dear boy,
after your dread-
ful fall?’ says
Maria, as they
paced the com-
mon. ‘ Oh, that
fall, Harry ! I
thought I should
have died when
I saw it ! You
needn’t squeeze
one’s arm so. You know you don’t care for me.’
* The people are the very best, kindest, dearest people
I have ever met in the world,’ cries Mr. Warrington.
‘ Mrs. Lambert was a friend of my mother when she was
in Europe for her education. Colonel Lambert is a most
accomplished gentleman, and has seen service everywhere.
278
THE VIRGINIANS
He was in Scotland with his royal highness, in Flanders,
at Minorca. No natural parents could be kinder than they
were to me. How can I show my gratitude to them ?
I want to make them a present : I must make them a
present,’ says Harry, clapping his hand into his pocket,
which was filled with the crisp spoils of Morris and March.
‘ We can go to the toy-shop, my dear, and buy a couple
of dolls for the children,’ says Lady Maria. ' You would
offend the parents by offering anything like payment for
their kindness.’
‘ Dolls for Hester and Theo I Why, do you think
a woman is not woman till she is forty, Maria ? ’ (The arm
under Harry’s here gave a wince perhaps, — ever so slight
a wince). ‘ I can tell you Miss Hester by no means con-
siders herself a child, and Miss Theo is older than her sister.
They know ever so many languages. They have read
books — oh ! piles and piles of books ! They play on the
harpsichord and sing together admirable ; and Theo
composes, and sings songs of her own.’
‘ Indeed ! I scarcely saw them. I thought they were
children. They looked quite childish. I had no idea
they had all these perfections, and were such wonders of
the world.’
‘ That’s just the way with you women ! At home, if me
or George praised a woman, Mrs. Esmond, and Mountain,
too, would be sure to find fault with her 1 ’ cries Harry.
" I am sure I would find fault with no one who is Mnd
to you, Mr. Warrington,’ sighed Maria, ‘ though you are
not angry with me for envying them because they had to
take care of you when you were wounded and ill — whilst
I — I had to leave you ? ’
‘ You dear good Maria ! ’
" No, Harry 1 I am not dear and good. There, sir, you
needn’t be so pressing in your attentions. Look ! There
is your black man walking with a score of other wretches in
livery. The horrid creatures are going to fuddle at the tea-
garden, and get tipsy like their masters. That dreadful
Mr. Morris was perfectly tipsy when I came to you, and
frightened you so.’
‘ I had just won great bets from both of them. What
shall I buy for you, my dear cousin ? ’ And Harry narrated
the triumphs which he had just achieved. He was in high
spirits : he laughed, he bragged a little. ‘ For the honour
PLENUM OPUS ALEAE
279
of Virginia I was determined to show them what jumping
w^as,’ he said. ‘ With a little practice I think I could
leap two foot farther.’
Maria was pleased with the victories of her young
champion. ^ But* you must bew'are about play, child,’ she
said. ‘ You know it hath been the ruin of our family.
My brother Castlewood, Will, our poor father, our aunt,
Lady Castlewood herself, they have all been victims to
it : as for my Lord March, he is the most dreadful gambler
and the most successful of ail the nobility.’
' I don’t intend to be afraid of him, nor of his friend
Mr. Jack Morris, neither,’ says Harry, again fingering the
delightful notes. ‘ What do you play at Aunt Bernstein’s ?
Cribbage, all-fours, brag, whist, commerce, piquet, quad-
rille ? I’m ready at any of ’em. What o’clock is that
striking — ^sure ’tis seven ! ’
* And you want to begin now,’ said the plaintive Maria.
* You don’t care about walking with your poor cousin.
Not long ago you did.’
‘ Hey ! Youth is youth, cousin I ’ cried Mr. Harry,
tossing up his head, ‘ and a young fellow must have his
fling I ’ and he strutted by his partner’s side, confident,
happy, and eager for pleasure. Not long ago, he did like
to walk with her. Only yesterday, he liked to be with
Theo and Hester^ and good Mrs. Lambert ; but pleasure,
life, gaiety, the desire to shine and to conquer, had also
their temptations for the lad, who seized the cup like other
lads, and did not care to calculate on the headache in store
for the morning. Whilst he and his cousin were talking,
the fiddles from the open orchestra on the Parade made
a great tuning and squeaking, preparatory to their usual
evening concert. Maria knew her aunt was awake again,
and that she must go back to her slavery. Harry never
asked about that slavery, though he must have known
it, had he taken the trouble to think. He never pitied
his cousin. He was not thinking about her at all. Yet
when his mishap befell him, she had been wounded far more
cruelly than he was. He had scarce ever been out of her
thoughts, which of course she had had to bury under
smiling hypocrisies, as is the way with her sex. I know,
my dear Mrs. Grundy, you think she was an old fool ?
Ah ! do you suppose fools’ caps do not cover grey hair,
as well as jet or auburn ? Bear gently with our elderly
280
THE YIROINIANS
fredaines, 0 you Minerva of a woman ! Or perhaps you
are so good and wise that you don’t .read novels at all.
This I know, that there are late crops of wild oats, as well
as early harvests of them ; and (from observation of self
and neighbour) I have an idea that the avena fatua grows up
to the very last days of the year.
Like worldly parents anxious to get rid of a troublesome
child, and go out to their evening party, Madame Bernstein
and her attendants had put the sun to bed, whilst it was
as yet light, and had drawn the curtains over it, and were
busy about their cards and their candles, and their tea
and negus, and other refreshments. One chair after
another landed ladies at the baroness’s door, more or less
painted, patched, brocaded. To these came gentlemen in
gala raiment. M. Poellnitz’s star was the largest, and his
coat the most embroidered of all present. My Lord of
March and Ruglen, when he made his appearance, was quite
changed from the individual with whom Harry had made
acquaintance at the ‘White Horse’. His tight brown
scratch was exchanged for a neatly curled feather top,
with a bag and grey powder, his jockey-dress and leather
breeches replac^ by a rich and elegant iVench suit.
Mr. Jack Morris had just such another wig, and a suit
of stuff as closely as possible resembling his lordship’s.
Mr. Wolfe came in attendance upon his beautiful mistress,
Miss Lowther, and her aunt, who loved cards, as all the
world did. When my Lady Maria Esmond made her
appearance, ’tis certain that her looks belled Madame
!lfemstein’s account of her. Her shape was very fine,
and her dress showed a great deal of it. Her complexion
was by nature exceeding fair, and a dark frilled ribbon,
clasped by a jewel, round her neck, enhanced its snowy
whiteness. Her cheeks were not redder than those of
other ladies present, and the roses were pretty openly
purchased by everybody at the perfumery-shops. An
artful patch or two, it was supposed, added to the lustre
of her charms. Her hoop was not larger than the iron
contrivances which ladies of the present day hang round
their persons ; and we may pronounce that the costume,
if ateurd in some points, was pleasing altogether. Suppose
our ladies took to wearing of bangles and nose-rings ?
I dare say we should laugh at the ornaments, and not
dislike them, and lovers would make no difficulty about
PLENUM OPUS ALEAE
281
lifting up the ring to be able to approach the rosy lips
underneath.
As for the Baroness de Bernstein, when that lady
took the pains of making a grand toilette, she appeared
as an object, handsome still, and magnificent, but melan-
choly, and even somewhat terrifying to behold. You
read the past in some old faces, while some others lapse
into mere meekness and content. The fires go quite
out of some eyes, as the crows’ feet pucker round
them ; they flash no longer with scorn, or with anger,
or love ; they gaze, and no one is melted by their sapphire
glances ; they look, and no one is dazzled. My fair young
reader, if you are not so perfect a beauty as the peerless
Lindamira, Queen of the Ball ; if, at the end of it, as you
retire to bed, you meekly own that you have had but
two or three partners, whilst Lindamira has had a crowd
round her all night — console yourself with thinking that, at
fifty, you will look as kind and pleasant as you appear now
at eighteen. You will not have to lay down your coach-
and-six of beauty and see another step into it, and walk
yourself through the rest of life. You will have to forgo
no long-accustomed homage ; you will not witness and own
the depreciation of your smiles. You will not see fashion
forsake your quarter ; and remain all dust, gloom and cob-
w^ebs within your once splendid saloons, with placards in
your sad windows, gaunt, londy, and to let ! You may not
have known any grandeur, but you won’t feel any desertion.
You will not have enjoyed millions, but you will have
escaped bankruptcy. ‘ Our hostess,’ said my Lord Chester-
field to his friend in a confidential w^hisper, of which the
utterer did not in the least know the loudness, ‘ puts me in
mind of Co vent Garden in my youth. Then it was the
Court end of the town, and inhabited by the highest fashion.
Now, a nobleman’s house is a gaming-house, or you may
go in with a friend and call for a bottle.’
‘ Hey ! a bottle and a tavern are good things in their
way,’ says my Lord March, with a shrug of his shoulders.
‘I was not born before the Georges came in, though I
intend to live to a himdred. I never knew the Bernstein
but as an old woman ; and if she ever had beauty, hang
me if I know how she spent it.’
‘ No, hang me, how did she spend it ? ’ laughs out Jack
Morris.
282
THE VIRGINIANS
^ Here’s a table 1 Shall we sit down and have a game ? —
Don’t let the German come in. He won’t pay. Mr.
Warrington, will you take a card ? ’ Mr. Warrington and
my Lord Chesterfield found themselves partners against
Mr. Morris and the Earl of March. * You have come too
late, baron,’ says the elder nobleman to the other noble-
man who was advancing. ‘We have made our game.
What, have you forgotten Mr. Warrington of Virginia —
the young gentleman whom you met in London ? ’
‘The young gentleman whom I met at Arthur’s Chocolate-
house had black hair, a little cocked nose, and was by no
means so fortunate in his personal appearance as Mr.
Warrington,’ said the baron with much presence of mind.
‘ Warrington, Borrington, Harrington ? We of the Continent
cannot retain your insular names. I certify that this
gentleman is not the individual of whom I spoke at dinner.’
And, glancing kindly upon him, the old beau sidled away
to a farther end of the room, where Mr. Wolfe and Miss
Lowther were engaged in deep conversation in the embrasure
of a window. Here the baron thought fit to engage the
lieutenant-colonel upon the Prussian manual exercise,
which had lately been introduced into King George II’s
army — ^a subject with which Mr. Wolfe was thoroughly
familiar, and which no doubt would have interested him
at any other moment but that. Nevertheless the old
gentleman uttered his criticisms and opinions, and thought
he perfectly charmed the two persons to whom he commu-
nicated them.
At the commencement oi the evening the baroness
received her guests personally, and as they arrived engaged
them in talk and introductory courtesies. But as the
rooms and tables filled, and the parties were made up,
Madame de Bernstein became more and more restless,
and finally retreated with three friends to her own comer,
where a table specially reserved for her was occupied
by her major-domo. And here the old lady sat down
resolutely, never changing her place or quitting her game
till cock-crow. The charge of receiving the company
devolved now upon my Lady Maria, who did not care
for cards, but dutifully did the honours of the house to
her aunt’s guests, and often rustled by the table where
her young cousin was engaged with his three friends.
‘ Come and cut the cards for us,’ said my Lord March
PLENUM OPUS ALEAE
283
to her ladyship, as she passed on one of her wistful visits.
* Cut the cards, and bring us luck, Lady Maria ! We
have had none to-night, and Mr. Warrington is winning
everything.’
‘ I hope you are not playing high, Harry ? ’ said the
lady, timidly.
‘ Oh, no, only sixpences,’ cried my lord, dealing.
‘ Only sixpences,’ echoed Mr. Morris, who was Lord
March’s partner. But Mr. Morris must have been very
keenly alive to the value of sixpence, if the loss of a few
such coins could make his round face look so dismal.
My Lord Chesterfield sat opposite Mr. Warrington, sorting
his cards. No one could say, by inspecting that calm
physiognomy whether good or ill fortune w’as attending his
lordship.
Some w^ord, not altogether indicative of delight, slipped
out of Mr. Morris’s lips, on which his partner cried out,
‘ Hang it, Morris, play your cards, and hold your tongue I ’
Considering they were only playing for sixpences, his lord-
ship, too, was strangely afiected.
Maria, stiU fondly lingering by Harry’s chair, with her
hand at the back of it, could see his cards, and that a whole
covey of trumps w^as ranged in one comer. She had not
taken away his luck. She was pleased to think she had
cut that pack which had dealt him all those pretty trumps.
As Lord March was dealing, he had said in a quiet voice
to Mr. Warrington, ‘The bet as before, Mr. Warrington,
or shall w^e double it ? ’
‘Anything you like, my lord,’ said Mr. Warrington,
very quietly.
‘ We will say, then, — shillings.’
‘Yes, shillings,’ says Mr. Warrington, and the game
proceeded.
The end of the day’s, and some succeeding days’, sport
may be gathered from the following letter, which was
never delivered to the person to w^hom it was addressed,
but found its way to America in the papers of Mr. Harry
Warrington.
Txjkbbidge Wells, August 10th, 1766.
Dear George. — As White’s two bottles of burgundy and a pack
of cards constitute all the joys of your life, I take for granted that
you are in London at this moment, preferring smoke and faro to
284
THE VIRGINIANS
fresh air and fresh haystacks. This will be delivered to you by
a young gentleman with whom I have lately made acquaintance,
and whom you will be charmed to know. He will play with you
at any game for any stake, up to any hour of the night, and drink
any reasonable number of bottles during the play. ]&. Warrington
is no other than the Fortunate Youth about whom so many stories
have been told in the Public Advertiser and other prints. He has
an estate in Virginia as big as Yorkshire, and with the incumbrance
of a mother, the reigning sovereign : but, as the country is un-
wholesome, and fevers plentiful, let us hope that Mrs. Esmond
will die soon, and leave this virtuous lad in undisturbed possession.
She is aunt of that pdisson of a Castlewood, who never pays his
play-debts, unless he is more honourable in his dealings with you
than he has been with me. Mr. W. is de bonne, race. We must
have him of our society, if it be only that I may win my money
back from him.
He has had the devil’s luck here, and has been winning everything,
whilst his old card-playing beldam of an aunt has been losing. A
few nights ago, when I first had the ill luck to make his acquaintance,
he beat me in jumping (having practised the art amongst the savages,
and running away from bears in his native woods) ; he won bets of
me and Jack Morris about my weight ; and at night, when we sat
down to play, at old Bernstein’s, he won from us all roimd. If you
can settle our last Epsom account, please hand over to Mr. War-
rington 350Z., which I still owe him, after pretty well emptying
my pocket-book. Chesterfield has dropped six hundred to him,
too ; but his lordship does not wish to have it known, having sworn
to give up play, and live cleanly. Jack Morris, who has not been hit
as hard as either of us, and can afford it quite as well, for the fat
chuff has no houses ncwc train to keep up, and all his misbegotten
father’s money in hand, roars like a bull of Bashan about his losses.
We had a second night’s play, en petit comite^ and Barbeau served
us a fair dinner in a private room. Mr. Warrington holds his
tongue like a gentleman, and none of us have talked about our losses ;
but the whole place does, for us. Yesterday the Cattarina looked
as sulky as thunder, because I would not give her a diamond necklace,
and says I refuse her, because I have lost five thousand to the
Virginian. My old Duchess of Q. has the very same story, besides
knowing to a fraction what Chesterfield and Jack have lost.
Warrington treated the company to breakfast and music at the
rooms ; and you should have seen how the women tore him to
pieces. That fiend of a Cattarina ogled him out of my vis-d-vis,
and under my very nose, yesterday, as we were driving to Penshurst,
and I have no doubt has sent him a hiUeUdoux ere this. He shot
Jack Morris aU to pieces at a mark ; we shall try him with partridges
when the season comes.
He is a fortunate fellow, certainly. He has youth (which is not
deboshed by evil courses in Virginia, as ours is in England), he has
good health, good looks, and good luck.
PLENUM OPUS ALEAE
287
In a word, Mr. Warrington has won our money in a very gentle-
manlike manner ; and, as I like him, and wish to win some of it
back again, I put him under your worship’s saintly guardianship.
Adieu ! I am going to the North, and shall be back for Doncaster.
Yours ever, dear George,
M. &R
To George Augustus Selwyn, l^q., at White’s
Chocolate-house, St. James’s Street.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE WAY OF THE WOBLD
JB young Virginian found him-
self, after two or three days at
Tunbridge Wells, by far the
most important personage in
that merry little watering-place.
No nobleman in the place in-
spired so much curiosity. My
Lord Bishop of Salisbury him-
self was scarce treated with more
respect. People turned round
to look after Harry as he passed,
and country folks stared at
him as they came in to market.
At the rooms, matrons encour-
aged him to come round to
them, and found means to leave
him alone with their daughters,
most of whom smiled upon him. Everybody knew, to
an acre and a shillin g, the extent of his Virginian property,
and the amount of his income. At every tea-table in the
Wells, his winnings at play were told and calculated.
Wonderful is the knowledge which our neighbours have
of our affairs ! So great was the interest and curiosity
which Harry inspired, that people even smiled upon his
servant, and took Gumbo aside and treated him with
ale and cold meat, in order to get news of the young Vir-
ginian. Mr. Gumbo fattened under the diet, became
a leading member of the Society of Valets in the place,
and lied more enormously than ever. No party was
288
THE VIRGINIANS
complete unless Mr. Warrington attended it. The lad
was not a little amused and astonished by this prosperity,
and bore his new honours pretty well. He had been bred
at home to think too well of himself, and his present good
fortune no doubt tended to confirm his self-satisfaction.
But he was not too much elated. He did not brag about his
victories or give himself any particular airs. In engaging
in play with the gentlemen who challenged him, he had
acted up to his queer code of honour. He felt as if he was
bound to meet them when they summoned him, and that
if they invited him to a horse-race, or a drinking-bout,
or a match at cards, for the sake of Old Virginia he must
not draw back. Mr. Harry found his new acquaintances
ready to txy him at all these sports and contests. He had
a strong head, a skilful hand, a firm seat, an unflhiching
nerve. The representative of Old Virginia came ofE very
well in his friendly rivalry with the mother-country.
Madame de B^nstein, who got her fill of cards ev^
night, and, no doubt, repaired the ill fortune of which we
heard in the last chapter, wSiS delighted with her nephew’s
victories and reputation. He had shot with Jack Morris
and beat him : he had ridden a match with Mr. Scamper
and won it. He played tennis with Captain Batts, and,
though the boy hgwi never tried the game before, in a few
days he held Ms own uncommonly well. He had engaged
in play with those celebrated gamesters, my lords 9!
Chesterfield and March ; and they both bore testimony
to his coolness, gallantry, and good bre^ng. At his
books Harry was not bmlismt certainly: but he could
write as well as a gimt number of men of fa^ion ; and the
naivete of his ignorance amused the old lady. She had
read books in her time, and could talk very well about
them with bookish people ; she had a relish for humour
and delighted in Moliere and Mr. Fielding, but she loved
the world far better than the library, and was never so
interested in any novel but that she would leave it for
a game of cards. She superintended with fond pleasure
the improvements of Harry’s toilette ; rummaged out
fine laces for his rufifles and shirt ; and found a pretty
diamond-brooch for his frill. He attained the post of
prime favourite of all her nephews and kinsfolk. I fear
Lady Maria was only too w^ell pleased at the lad’s successes,
and did not grudge him his superiority over her brothers :
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
280
but those gentlemen must have quaked with fear and
envy w^hen they heard of Mr. Warrington’s prodigious
successes, and the advance which he had made in their
wealthy aunt’s favour.
After a fortnight of Tunbridge, Mr. Harry had become
quite a personage. He knew all the good company in the
place. Was it his fault if he became acquainted with the
bad likewise ? Was he very wTong in taking the w’orld
as he found it, and drinking from that sw^eet sparkling
pleasure-cup, which was filled for him to the brim ? The
old aunt enjoyed his triumphs, and for her part only bade
him pursue his enjoyments. She was not a rigorous old
moralist, nor, perhaps, a very wholesome preceptress for
youth. If the Cattarina wTote him billets-doux, I fear
Aunt Bernstein would have bade him accept the invitations :
but the lad had brought with him from his colonial home
a stock of modesty, w^hich he still w^ore along with the
honest homespun linen. Libertinism was rare in those
thinly-peopled regions from which he came. The vices of
great cities were scarce known or practised in the rough
towns of the American continent. Harry Warrington
blushed like a girl at the daring talk of his new European
associates : even Aunt Bernstein’s conversation and jokes
astounded the young Virginian, so that the worldly old
w’oman would call him Joseph, or simpleton.
But, however innocent he was, the world gave him
credit for being as bad as other folks. How was he to
know that he was not to associate with that saucy Cattarina?
He had seen my Lord March driving her about in his
lordship’s phaeton. Harry thought there was no harm in
giving her his arm, and parading openly with her in the
public walks. She took a fancy to a trinket at the toy-
shop ; and, as his pockets were full of money, he was
delighted to make her a present of the locket which she
coveted. The next day it was a piece of lace : again Harry
gratified her. The next day it was something else : there
was no end to Madame Cattarina’s fancies ; but here the
young gentleman stopped, turning off her request with
a joke and a laugh. He was shrew’d enough, and not
reckless or prodigal, though generous. He had no idea
of purchasing diamond drops for the petulant little lady’s
pretty ears.
But who w^as to give him credit for his modesty ? Old
L
YIHGINIAXS
290
THE VIRGINIANS
Bernstein insisted upon believing that her nephewwas play-
ing Don Juan’s part, and supplanting my Lord March. She
insisted the more when poor Maria was by ; loving to stab
the tender heart of that spinster, and enjoying her niece’s
piteous silence and discomfiture.
‘ Why, my dear,’ says the baroness, ‘ boys will be boys,
and I don’t want Harry to be the first milksop in his family 1 ’
The bread which Maria ate at her aunt’s expense choked
her sometimes. Oh me, how hard and indigestible some
women know how to make it i
Mr. Wolfe was for ever coming over from Westerham
to pay court to the lady of his love ; and, knowing that the
colonel was entirely engaged in that pursuit, Mr. Warrington
scarcely expected to see much of him, however much he
liked that officer’s conversation and society. It was
different from the talk of the ribald people round about
Harry. Mr. Wolfe never spoke of cards, or horses’ pedi-
grees ; or bragged of his performances in the hunting-
field ; or boasted of the favours of women ; or retailed
any of the innumerable scandals of the time. It was not
a good time. That old world was more dissolute than
ours. There was an old king with mistresses openly in
his train, to whom the great folks of the land did honour.
There was a nobility, many of whom were mad and reckless
in the pursuit of pleasure ; there was a looseness of words
and acts which we must note, as faithful historians, without
going into particulars, and needlessly shocking present
readers. Our young gentleman had lighted upon some
of the wildest of these wild people, and had found an old
relative who lived in the very midst of the rout.
Harry thm did not remark how Colonel Wolfe avoided
him, or when they casually met, at first, notice the colonel’s
cold and altered demeanour. He did not know the stories
that were told of him. Who does know the stories that
are told of him ? Who makes them ? Who are the
fathers of those wondrous lies ? Poor Harry did not
know the reputation he was getting ; and that, whilst
he was riding his horse and playing his game and taking
his frolic, he was passing amongst many respectable persons
for being the most abandoned and profligate and godless
of young men.
Alas, and alas I to think that the lad whom we liked
so, and who was so gentle and quiet when with us, so
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
201
simple and so easily pleased, should be a hardened pro-
fligate, a spendthrift, a confirmed gamester, a frequenter
of abandoned women ! These stories came to w’orthy
Olonel Lambert at Oakhurst : first one bad story, then
another, then crowds of them, till the good man’s kind
heart was quite filled with grief and care, so that his family
saw that something annoyed him. At first he would not
speak on the matter at all, and put aside the wife’s fond
queries. Mrs. Lambert thought a great misfortune had
happened ; that her husband had been ruined ; that he
had been ordered on a dangerous service ; that one of the
boys was ill, disgraced, dead : w^ho can resist an anxious
woman, br escape the cross-examination of the conjugal
pillow? Lambert w^as obliged to tell a part of what he knew
about Harry Warrington. The wife w^as as much grieved
and amazed as her husband had been. From papa’s and
mamma’s bedroom the grief, after being stifled for a w-hile
under the bed-pillows there, came downstairs. Theo and
Hester took the complaint after their parents, and had
it very bad. 0 kind little wounded hearts ! At first
Hester turned fed, flew into a great passion, clenched her
little fists, and vowed she w’ould not believe a wnrd of
the wicked stories ; but she ended by believing them.
Scandal alm(^t always does master people ; especially
good and innocent people. Oh, the serpent they had
pursed by their fire 1 Oh, the wretched, wretched boy !
To think of his w’-alking about with that horrible painted
Frenchwoman, and giving her diamond necklaces, and
•parading his shame before all the society at the Wells I
The three ladies having cried over^he story, and the father
being deeply moved by it, took the parson into their
confidence. In vain he preached at church next Sunday
his favouri|;e sermon about scandal, and inveighed against
pur propensity to think evil. We repent : we promise
to do so no more ; but when the next bad story comes
about our neighbour we believe it. So did those kind,
wretched Oakhurst folks believe what they heard about
poor Harry Warrington.
Harry Warrington meanwMe was a great deal too well
pleased with himself to know how ill his friends w’^ere thinking
of him, and was pursuing a very idle and pleasant, 3
unprofitable, life, without having the least notion of the
hubbub he was creating, and the dreadful repute in which
292
THE VIRGINIANS
he was held by many good men. Coming out from a match
at tennis with Mr. Batts, and pleased with his play and
all the world, Harry overtook Colonel Wolfe, who had
been on one of his visits to the lady of his heart. Harry
held out his hand, which the colonel took, but the latter’s
salutation was so cold, that the young man could not
help remarking it, and especially noting how Mr. Wolfe,
in return for a fine bow from Mr, Batts’s hat, scarcely
touched his owm with his forefinger. The tennis captain
walked away looking somewhat disconcerted, Harry
remaining behind to talk with his friend of Westerham.
Mr. Wolfe walked by him for a while, very erect, silent,
and cold.
‘ I have not seen you these many days,’ says Harry.
‘ You have had other companions,’ remarks Mr. Wolfe,
curtly.
‘ But I had rather be with you than any of them,’ cries
the young man.
‘ Inde^ I might be better company for you than some
of them,’ says the other.
‘ Is it Captain Batts you mean ? ’ asked Harry.
‘ He is no favourite of mine, I own : he bore a rascally
reputation when he was in the army, and I doubt has not
mended it since he was turned out. ' You certainly might
find a better friend than Captain Batts. Pardon the freedom
which I take in saying so,’ says Mr. WoKe, grimly.
‘ Friend ! he is no friend : he only teaches, me to play
tennis : he is hand-in-glove with my lord, and all the
people of fashion here who play.’
‘ I am not a man of fashion,’ says Mr. Wolfe.
‘ My dear colonel, what is the matter 2 Have I angered
you in any way ? You speak almost as if I had, and
I am not conscious of having done anything to forfeit
your regard,’ said Mr. Warrington.
‘I will be free with you, Mr. Warrington,’ said the
colonel, gravely, ‘ and tell you with frankness that I don’t
like some of your friends.’
‘ Why, sure, they are men of the first rank and fashion
in England,’ cries Harry, not choosing to be offended
with his companion’s bluntness.
‘ Exactly, they are men of too high rank and too great
fashion for a hard-w’orking poor soldier like me ; and if
you continue to live with such, believe me, you will find
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
29S
numbers of us humdrum people can’t afford to keep sueli
company. I am here, Mr. Warrington, paying my addresses
to an honourable lady. I met you yesterday openly
walking with a French ballet-dancer, and you took off
your hat. I must frankly tell you, that I had rather you
would not take off your hat w’hen you go out in such
company.’
‘ Sir,’ said Mr. Warrington, growing very red, ‘ do you
mean that I am to forgo the honour of Colonel W^oHe’s
acquaintance altogether ? ^
‘ I certainly shall request you to do so when you are
in company with that person,’ said Colonel Wolfe, angrily ;
but he used a wwd not to be written at present, though
Shakespeare puts it in the mouth of Othello.
^ Great Heavens ! what a shame it is to speak so of any
woman ! ’ cries Mr, Warrington. ‘ How dare any man
say that that poor creature is not honest ? ’
‘ You ought to know- best, sir,’ says the other, looking
at Harry with some surprise, ‘or the world belies you
very much.’
‘ What ought I to know best ? I see a poor little French
dancer who is come hither with her mother, and is ordered
by the doctors to drink the waters. I know that a person
of my rank in life does not ordinarily keep company with
people- of hers : but reafly. Colonel Wolfe, are you so
squeamish ? Have I not heard you say that you did not
value birth, and that all honest people ought to be equal ?
Why should I not give this Httle unprotected w’oman
my arm ? there are scarce half a dozen people here who
can speak a word of her language. I can talk a little French,
and she is welcome to it ; and if Colonel Wolfe does not
choose to touch his hat to me, w’hen I am walking with
her, by George he may leave it alone,’ cried Harry, flushing
up.
‘ You don’t mean to say,’ says Mr. Wolfe, eyeing him,
‘ that you don’t know^ the w’oman’s character ? ’
" Oi course, sir, she is a dancer, and, I suppose, no better
or worse than her neighbours. But I mean to say that,
had she been a duchess, or your grandmother, I couldn’t
have respected her more.’
‘ You don’t mean to say that you did not win her at
dice from Lord March ? ’
‘ At wLat ! ’
294
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ At dice, from Lord March. Everybody knows the story.
Not a person at the Wells is ignorant of it. I heard it but
now, in the company of that good old Mr. Richardson, and
the ladies were saying that you would be a character for
a colonial Lovelace.’
‘ What on earth else have they said about me ? ’ asked
Harry Warrington ; and such stories as he knew the colonel
told. The most alarming accounts of his own wickedness and
profligacy were laid before him. He was a corrupter of
virtue, an habitual drunkard and gamester, a notorious
blasphemer and freethinker, a fitting companion for my
Lord March, flhaUy, and the company into whose society
he had fallen. ‘ I tell you these things,’ said Mr. Wolfe,
‘ because it is fair that you should know what is said of
you, and because I do heartily believe, from your manner
of meeting the last charge brought against you, that you
are innocent on most of the other counts. I feel, Mr. War-
rington, that I, for one, have been doing you a VTong ; and
sincerely ask you to pardon me.’
Of course, Harry was eager to accept his friend’s apology,
and they shook hands with sincere cordiality this time.
In respect of most of the charges brought against him,
Harry rebutted them easily enough : as for the play, he
owned to it. He thought that a gentleman should not
refuse a fair challenge from other gentlemen, if his means
allowed him : and he never w^ould play beyond his means.
After winning considerably at first, he could afford to play
large stakes, for he was playing with other people’s money.
Play he thought was fair, — ^it certainly was pleasant. Why,
did not all England, except the Methodists, play ? Had
he not seen the best company at the Wells over the cards —
his aunt amongst them ?
Mr. Wolfe made no immediate comment upon Harry’s
opinion as to the persons who formed the best company
at the Wells, but he frankly talked with the young man,
whose own frankness had won him, and warned him that
the life he was leading might be the pleasantest, but surely
was not the most profitable of lives. ‘ It can’t be, sir,’ said
the colonel, ‘ that a man is to pass his days at horse-racing
and tennis, and his nights carousing or at cards. Sure,
every man was made to do some work : and a gentleman,
if he has none, must make some. Do you know^ the law^
of your country, Mr. Warrington ? Being a great pro-
THE WAY OP THE WORLD
297
prietor, you will doubtless one day be a magistrate at home.
Have you travelled over the country, and made yourself
acquainted with its trades and manufactures ? These are
fit things for a gentleman to study, and may occupy him
as w’ell as a cockfight or a cricket match. Do you know’
anything of our profession ? That, at least, you will
allow is a noble one ; and, believe me, there is plenty in it
to learn, and suited, I should think, to you. I speak of it
rather than of books and the learned professions, because,
as far as I can judge, your genius does not lie that way.
But honour is the aim of life,’ cried Mr. Wolfe, ‘ and every
man can serve his country one w’ay or the other. Be sure,
sir, that idle bread is the most dangerous of all that is eaten,
that cards and pleasure may be taken by w’ay of pastime
after w^ork, but not instead of work, and all day. And do
you know, Mr. Warrington, instead of being the Fortunate
Youth, as all the w’orld calls you, I think you are rather
Warrington the Unlucky, for you are follow’^ by daily
idleness, daily flattery, daily temptation, and the Lord,
I say, send you a good deliverance out of your good
fortune.’
Harry did not like to tell his aunt that afternoon why
it was he looked so grave. He thought he wnuld not drink,
but there were some joHy fellows at the ordinary w^ho passed
the bottle round ; and he meant not to play in the evening,
but a fourth was wanted at his aunt’s table, and how could
he resist ? He w’as the old lady’s partner several times
during the night, and he had Somebody’s own luck to be
sure ; and once more he saw the dawn, and feasted on
chickens and champagne at sunrise.
THE VIKGINIANS
CHAPTER XXIX
IN 'WHICH HARRY CONTINUES TO ENJOY OTIUM SINE DIGNITATE
:rLST there were card-players
enough to meet her at her
lodgings and the assembly
rooms, Madame de Bern-
stein remained pretty con-
tentedly at the Wells,
scolding her niece, and play-
ing her rubber. At Harry’s
age almost all places are
pkasant, where you can
have lively company, fresh
air, and your share of sport
and diversion. Even all
pleasure is pleasant at
twenty. We go out to meet
it with alacrity, speculate
upon its coming, and when its visit is announced, count
the days until it and we shall come together. How very
gently and coolly we regard it towards the close of Life’s
long season ! Madam, don’t you recollect your first ball ;
and does not your memory stray towards that happy past,
sometimes, as you sit ornamenting the wsdl whikt your
daughters are dancing ? I, for my part, can remember
when I thought it was delightful to walk three miles and
back in the country to dine with old Captain Jones. Fancy
liking to walk three miles, now, to dine with Jones and
drink his half -pay port ! No doubt it was bought from
the little country-towm wine merchant, and cost but a small
sum ; but ’tw^as offered with a kindly welcome, and youth
gave it a flavour which no age of wine or man can impart to
it now'adays. Viximus nuper, I am not disposed to look
so severely upon young Harry’s conduct and idleness, as
his friend the stern colonel of the Twentieth Regiment.
0 blessed idleness 1 Divine lazy nymph ! Reach me
a novel as I lie in my dressing-gowm at three o’clock in
the afternoon ; compound a sherry-cobbler for me, and
bring me a cigar ! Dear slatternly, smiling Enchantress !
OTIUM SINE BIGNITATE
•299
They may assail thee with bad names — swear thy character
away, and call thee the Mother of Evil ; but, for all that,
thou art the best company in the world I
My Lord of March went away to the North ; and my
Lord Chesterfield, finding the Tunbridge waters did no
good to his deafness, returned to his solitude at Blackheath ;
but other gentlemen remained to sport and take their
pleasure, and Mr. Warrington had quite enough of com-
panions at his ordinary at the ‘ White Horse He soon
learned to order a Trench dinner as well as the best man
of fashion out of St. James’s ; could talk to Monsieur Bar-
beau, in Monsieur B.’s native language, much more fluently
than most other folks, — discovered a very elegant and
decided taste in wines, and could distinguish betw’een
Clos Vougeot and Romance with remarkable skill. He
was the young King of the Wells, of w^hich the general
frequenters were easy-going men of the world, who w’ere
by no means shocked at that reputation for gallantry and
extravagance which Harry had got, and which had so
frightened Mr. Wolfe.
Though our Virginian lived amongst the revellers, and
swam and sported in the same waters with the loose fish,
the boy had a natural shrew^dness and honesty which kept
him clear of the snares and baits which are commonly set
for the unwary. He made very few foolish bets with the
jolly idle fellows round about him, and the oldest hands
found it difficult to take him in. He engaged in games
out-doors and in, because he had a natural skill and aptitude
for them, and w^as good to hold almost any match with
any fair competitor. He w^as scrupulous to play only with
those gentlemen whom he knew, and always to settle his
own debts on the spot. He would have made but a very
poor figure at a college examination ; though he possessed
prudence and fidelity, keen, shrewd perception, great
generosity, and dauntless personal courage.
And he w’as not without occasions for showing of w'hat
stuff he w’as made. For instance, w^hen that unhappy
little Cattarina, w^ho had brought him into so much trouble,
carried her importunities beyond the mark at which Harry
thought his generosity shordd stop, he withdrew from the
advances of the Opera-house Siren with perfect coolness
and skill, leaving her to exercise her blandishments upon
some more easy victim. In vain the mermaid’s hysterical
soo
THE VIRGINIANS
mother waited upon Harry, and vow’ed that a cruel bailiff
had seized all her daughter’s goods for debt, and that her
venerable father was at present languishing in a London
jail : Harry declared that between himself and the bailiff
there could be no dealings ; and that because he had had
the good fortune to become known to Mademoiselle Cat-
tarina, and to gratify her caprices by presenting her with
various trinkets and knick-knacks for which she had
a fancy, he was not bound to pay the past debts of her
family, and must decline being bail for her papa in London,
or settling her outstanding accounts at Tunbridge. The
Cattarina’s mother first called him a monster and an
ingrate, and then asked him, with a veteran smirk, why
he did not take pay for the services he had rendered to the
young person ? At first, Mr. Warrington could not under-
stand what the nature of the payment might be : but
when that matter w^as explained by the old woman, the
simple lad rose up in horror, to think that a woman should
traffic in her child’s dishonour, told her that he came from
a coxmtry where the very savages would recoil from such
a bargain ; and, having bowed the old lady ceremoniously
to the door, ordered Gumbo to maxk her well, and never
admit her to his lodgings again. No doubt she retired
breathing vengeance against the Iroquois : no Turk or
Persian, she declared, would treat a lady so : and she and
her daughter retreated to London as soon as their anxious
landlord would let them. Then Harry had his perils of gam-
ing, as well as his perils of gaHantry. A man who plays
at ^wls, as the phrase is, must expect to meet with rubbers.
After dinner at the ordinary, having declined to play
piquet any further with Captain Batts, and being roughly
asked his reason for refusing, Harry fairly told the captain
that he only played with gentlemen who paid, like himself :
but expres^ himself so ready to satisfy Mr. Batts, as
soon as their outstanding little accoimt w^as settled, that
the captain declared himself satisfied d'^avance, and straight-
way left the Wells without paying Harry or any other
creditor. Also he had an occasion to show his spirit by
beating a chairman who was rude to old Miss Whiffler
one evening as she was going to the assembly : and finding
that the calumny regarding himself and that unlucky
opera-dancer was repeated by Mr. Hector Buckler, one
of the fiercest frequenters of the Wells, Mr. Warrington
OTITOI SINE DIGNITATE ^1
stepped up to Mr. Buckler in the pump-room, where the
latter was regaling a number of water-drinkers with the
very calumny, and publicly informed Mr. Buckler that
the story vras a falsehood, and that he should hold any
person accountable to himself who henceforth uttered it.
So that though our friend, being at Rome, certainly did
as Rome did, yet he show’ed himself to be a valorous and
worthy Roman ; and, hurlant avec les Imps, was acknow-
ledged by Mr. Wolfe himself to be as brave as the best
of the w’olves.
If that officer had told Colonel Lambert the stories which
had given the latter so much pain, w^e may be sure that
when Mr. Wolfe found his young friend was innocent, he
took the first opportunity to withdraw^ the odious charges
against him. And there was joy among the Lamberts in
consequence of the lad’s acquittal — something, doubtless,
of that pleasure, which is felt by higher natures than ours,
at the recovery of sinners. Never h^ the little family been
so happy — ^no, not even when they got the news of brother
Tom winning his scholarship, as when Colonel Wolfe rode
over with the account of the conversation w^hich he had
with Harry Warrington. ‘ Hadst thou brought me a regi-
ment^ James, I think I should not have been better pleased,’
said Mr, Lambert. Mrs. Lambert called to her daughters,
who were in the garden, and kissed them both w'hen they
came in, and cried out the good new’^s to them. Hetty
jumped for joy, and Theo performed some uncommonly
brilliant operations upon the harpsichord that night ;
and when Dr. Boyle came in for his backgammon, he
could not, at first, account for the illumination in all their
faces, until the three ladies, in a happy chorus, told him
how right he had been in his sermon, and how^ dreadfully
they had wronged that poor dear, good young Mr. War-
rington.
‘ What shall we do, my dear ? ’ says the colonel to his
wdfe. ‘ The hay is in, the corn won’t be cut for a fortnight, —
the horses have nothing to do. Suppose we ’ And
here he leans over the table and whispers in her ear.
‘ My dearest Martin ! The very thing I ’ cries Mrs.
Lambert, taking her husband’s hand and pressing it.
‘ Wliat’s the very thing, mother ? ’ cries young Charley,
who is home for liis Bartlemytide holidays.
‘ The very thing is to go to supper. Come, doctor 5
302
THE VIRGINIANS
We will have a bottle of wine to-night, and drink repent-
ance to all who think evil.’
‘ Amen,’ says the doctor ; " with all my heart ! ’ And
with this the worthy family w’ent to their supper.
CHAPTER XXX
CONTAINS A LETTEB TO VCEGINIA
AViNG repaired one day to his
accustomed dinner at the ‘ White
Horse ’ ordinary, Mr. Warrington
was pleased to see amongst the
faces round the table the jolly
good-looking countenance of
Parson Sampson, who was re-
galing the company when Harry
entered, with stories and bons
mots, which kept them in roars
of laughter. Though he had not
been in London for some months,
the parson had the latest London
news, or what passed for such
with the folks at the ordinary :
what was doing in the king’s house at Kensington ;
and what in the duke’s in Pall Mall : how Mr. Byng
was behaving in prison, and who came to him : w^hat
were the odds at Newmarket, and who was the last
reigning toast in Covent Garden ; — the jolly chaplain
could give the company news upon all these points, —
news that might not be very accurate indeed, but was
as good as if it were for the country gentlemen who
hearf it. Eor suppose that my Lord Viscount Squan-
derfield was ruining himself for Mrs. PoUy, and Sampson
called her Mrs. Lucy ? that it was Lady Jane who was in
love with the actor, and not Lady Mary ? that it was Harry
Hilt on of the Horse Grenadiers, who had the quarrel with
Chevalier Solinger, at Marybone Garden, and not Tommy
Ruffler of the Foot Guards ? The names and dates did
not matter much. Provided the stories were lively and
wicked, their correctness was of no great importance ;
A LETTER TO VIRGINIA mZ
and Mr. Sampson laughed and chattered away amongst
his country gentlemen, charmed them with his spirits and
talk, and drank his share of one bottle after another, for
which his delighted auditory persisted in calling. A
hundred years ago, the abhe parson, the clergyman who
frequented the theatre, the tavern, the racecourse, the
world of fashion, was no uncommon character in English
society : his voice might be heard the loudest in the
hunting-field : he could sing the jolliest song at the ‘ Rose ’
or the ^ Bedford Head after the play was over at Covent
Garden, and could call a main as W'ell as any at the gaming
table.
It may have been modesty, or it may have been claret,
which caused his reverence’s rosy face to redden deeper,
but when he saw Mr. Warrington enter, he wdiispered,
‘ Maxima debetur ’ to the laughing country squire w'ho sat
next him in his drab coat and gold-laced red w^aistcoat,
and rose up from his chair and ran, nay, stumbled forward
in his haste to greet the Virginiaai : ‘ My dear sir, my
very dear sir, my conqueror of spades, and clubs, and
hearts, too, I am delighted to see your honour looking
so fresh and well,’ cries the chaplain.
Harry returned the clerg3rman’s greeting with great
pleassure : he was glad to see Mr. Sampson ; he could also
justly compliment his rever^oe upon his cheerful looks
and rosy gills.
The squire in the drab coat knew Mr. Warrington ; he
made a place beside himself ; he called out to the parson
to return to his seat on the other side, and to continue his
story about Lord Ogle and the grocer’s wife in wiiere
he did not say, for his sentence w’as interrupted by a shout,
and an oath addressed to the parson for treading on his
gouty toe.
The chaplain asked pardon, hurriedly turned round to
Mr. Warrington, and informed him, and the rest of the
company indeed, that my Lord Castlewood sent his affec-
tionate remembrances to his cousin, and had given special
orders to him (Mr. Sampson) to come to Tunbridge Wells
and look after the young gentleman’s morals ; that my
lady viscountess and my Lady Fanny w’ere gone to
Harrogate for the waters ; that Mr. Will had w'on his
money at Newmarket, and w^as going on a visit to my
lord duke ; that Molly the housemaid was crying her eyes
304
THE VIRGINIANS
out about Gumbo, Mr. Warrington’s valet ; — ^in fine, all
the news of Castlewood and its neighbourhood. Mr. War-
rington was beloved by all the country round, Mr. Sampson
told the company, managing to introduce the names of
some persons of the very highest rank into his discourse.
‘ All Hampshire had heard of his successes at Tunbridge,
successes of every kind,’ says Mr. Sampson, looking par-
ticularly arch ; my lord hoped, their ladyships hoped,
Harry would not be spoilt for his quiet Hampshire home.
The guests dropped ofi one by one, leaving the young
Virginian to his bottle of wine and the chaplain.
‘ Though I have had plenty,’ says the jolly chaplain,
‘ that is no reason why I should not have plenty more,’
and he drank toast after toast, and bumper after bumper,
to the amusement of Harry, who always enjoyed his
society.
By the time when Sampson had had his ‘ plenty more
Harry, too, was become specially generous, warm-hearted,
and friendly. A lodging ? — ^why should Mr. Sampson go
to the expense of an inn, when there was a room at Harry’s
quarters ? The chaplain’s trunk was ordered thither,
Gumbo was bidden to make Mr. Sampson comfortable —
most comfortable ; nothing would satisfy Mr. Warrington
but that Sampson should go down to his stables and see
his horses ; he had several horses now ; and w’hen at the
stable Sampson recognized his own horse, which Harry had
won from Mm ; and the fond beast whinnied with pleasure,
and rubbed his nose against his old master’s coat, Harry
rapped out a brisk energetic expression or two, and vowed
by Jupiter that Sampson should have his old horse back
again : he would give him to Sampson, that he would ;
a gift which the chaplain accepted by seizing Harry’s hand,
and blessing him, — ^by flinging his arms round the horse’s
neck, and weeping for joy there, weeping tears of bordeaux
and gratitude. Arm-in-arm the friends walked to Madame
Bernstein’s, from the stable of which they brought the
odours into her ladyship’s apartment. Their flushed
cheeks and brightened eyes showed what their amusement
had been. Many gentlemen’s cheeks were in the habit
of flushing in those da^s, and from the same cause.
Madame Bernstein received her nephew’s chaplain
Mndly enough. The old lady relished Sampson’s broad
jokes and rattling talk from time to time, as she liked
A LETTER TO VIRGINIA
305
a highly spiced dish or a new entr4e composed by her cook,
upon its two or three first appearances. The only amuse-
ment of which she did not grow tired, she owned, was
cards. ‘ The cards don’t cheat,’ she used to say. " A bad
hand tells you the truth to your face : and there is nothing
so flattering in the world as a good suite of trumps.’ And
when she was in a good humour, and sitting do\\'n to her
favourite pastime, she would laughingly bid her nephew’s
chaplain say grace before the meal. Honest Sampson did
not at first care to take a hand at Tunbridge Wells. Her
ladyship’s play was too high for him, he w^ould oto, slapping
his pocket with a comical piteous look, and its contents
had already been handed over to the fortunate youth at
Castlewood. like most persons of her age and indeed
her sex, Madame Bernstein w^as not prodigal of money.
I suppose it must have been from Harry Warrington,
whose heart was overflowing with generosity as his purse
with guineas, that the chaplain procured a small stock
of ready coin, with which he was presently enabled to
appear at the card-table.
Our young gentleman welcomed Mr. Sampson to his
coin, as to all the rest of the good things which he had
gathered about him. ’Twas surprising how quickly the
young .Vii^nian adapted himsefi to the haWts of life
of the folks amongst whom he lived. His suits were still
black, but of the finest cut and quality. ‘ With a star
and ribbon, and his stocking down, and his hair over his
shoulder, he would make a pretty Hamlet,’ said the gay
old Duchess Queensberry. ‘ And I make no doubt he has
been the death of a dozen Ophelias already, here and
amongst the Indians,’ she added, thinking not at all the
worse of Harry for his supposed successes among the fair.
Harry’s lace and linen were as fine as his aunt could desire.
He purchased fine shaving-plate of the toy-shop women,
and a couple of magnificent brocade bed-gowns, in which
his worship lolled at ease, and sipped his chocolate of
a morning. He had swords and w^alking-canes, and
French watches with painted backs and diamond settings,
and snufi-boxes enamelled by artists of the same cunning
nation. He had a levee of grooms, jockeys, tradesmen,
daily waiting in his ante-room, and admitted one by one
to him and Parson Sampson, over his chocolate, by Gumbo
the groom of the chambers. We have no account of the
306
THE VIMtINIANS
number of men whom Mr. Gumbo now had under him.
Certain it is that no single negro could have taken care
of all the fine things which Mr. Warrington now possessed,
let alone the horses and the post-chaise which has honour
had bought. Also Harry instructed himself in the arts
which became a gentleman in those days. A Erench
fencing-master, and a dancing-master of the same nation,
resided at Tunbridge during that season when Harry made
his appearance : these men of science the young Virginian
sedulously frequented, and acquired considerable skill
and grace in the peaceful and warlike accomplishments
which they taught. Ere many weeks were over he could
handle the foils against his master or any frequenter of
the fencing-school, — and, with a sigh. Lady l^toia ('who
dsmced very elegantly herself) owned that there was no
gentleman at Court who could walk a minuet more grace-
fully than Mr. Warrington. As for riding, though Mr.
Warrington took a fe'w lessons on the great horse from
a riding-master who came to Tunbridge, he declared that
their own Virginian manner was well enough for him, and
that he saw no one amongst the fine folks and the jockeys
who could ride better Qian his friend Colonel George
Washington of Mount Vernon.
The obsequious Sampson found himself in better quarters
than he had enjoyed for ever so long a time. He knew
a great deal of the world, and told a great deal more, and
Harry was delighted uith his stories, real or fancied. The
man of twenty looks up to the man of thirty, admires
the latter’s old jokes, st^e puns, and tarnished anecdotes
that are slopped with the wine of a himdred dinner-tables.
Sampson’s town and college pleasantries were all new and
charming to the young Virginian. A hundred years ago, —
no doubt there are no such people left in the world now, —
there used to he grown men in London who loved to consort
with fashionable youths entering life ; to tickle their
young fancies with merry stories ; to act as Covent-Garden
Mentors and masters of ceremonies at the Eound-house ;
to accompany lads to the gaming-table, and perhaps have
an understanding with the punters ; to drink lemonade
to Master Hopeful’s burgundy, and to stagger into
the streets with perfectly cool heads when my young
lord re^ed out to beat the watch. Of this no doubt
extinct race, Mr. Sampson was a specimen ; and a great
A LETTER TO VIRGINIA m
comfort it is to think (to those who choose to believe the
statement) that in Queen Victoria’s reign there are no
flatterers left, such as existed in the reign of her royal
great-grandfather, no parasites pandering to the follies
of young men ; in fact, that all the toads have been eaten
off the face of the island (except one or two that are found
in stones, where they have lain 'perdus these hundred
years), and the toad-eaters have perished for lack of
nourishment.
With some sauce, as I read, the above-mentioned animals
are said to be exceedingly fragrant, w’holesome, and savoury
eating. Indeed, no man could look more rosy and healthy,
or flourish more cheerfully than friend Sampson upon the
diet. He became our young friend’s confidential leader,
and, from the following letter, w’hich is preserved in the
Warrington correspondence, it will be seen that Mr. Harry
not only had dancing- and fencing-masters, but likewise
a tutor, chaplain, and secretary.
TO MRS. ESMOND WARRINGTON, OF CASTLEWOOD,
AT HER HOUSE AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.
Mrs. Bugh’s Lodgings, Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells,
August 25th, 1756,
Honoured Madam, — Your honoured letter of 20 June, per
Mr. Trail of Bristol, has been forwarded to me duly, and I have
to thank your goodness and kindness for the good advice which
you are pleased to give me, as also for the remembrances of dear
home, which I shall love never the worse for having been to the
home of our ancestors in England.
I writ you a letter by the last monthly packet, informing my
honoured mother of the little accident I had on the road hither,
and of the kind friends who I found and whom took me in. Since
then I have been profiting of the fine weather and the good company
here, and have made many friends among our nobility, whose
acquaintance I am sure you will not be sorry that I should make.
Among their lordships I may mention the famous Earl of Chester-
field, late ambassador to Holland, and viceroy of the kingdom of
Ireland ; the Earl of March and Ruglen, who will be Duke of Queer s-
berry at the death of his grace ; and her grace the duchess, a cele-
brated beauty of the queen’s time, when she remembers my grand-
papa at Court. These and many more persons of the first fashion
attend my aunt’s assemblies, which are the most crowded at this
crowded place. Also on my way hither I stayed at Westerham,
at the house of an officer, Lieut.-Gen. Wolfe, who served with my
grandfather and General Webb in the famous wars of the Duke of
308
THE VIRGINIANS
Marlborough. Mr, Wolfe has a son, Lieut. -Col. James Wolfe,
engaged to be married to a beautiful lady now in this place. Miss
Lowther of the North — and though but thirty years old, he is looked
up to as much as any officer in the whole army, and hath served
with honour under his royal highness the duke wherever our arms
have been employed.
I thank my honoured mother for announcing to me that a quarter’s
allowance of 52Z. lOa. will be paid me by Mr. Trail. I am in no
present want of cash, and by practising a rigid economy, which
will be necessary (as I do not disguise) for the maintenance of horses,
Gumbo, and the equipage and apparel requisite for a young gentle-
man of good family, hope to be able to maintain my credit without
unduly trespassing upon yours. The linnen and clothes which
I brought with me will with due care last for some years — as you
say. ’Tis not quite so fine as worn here by persons of fashion, and
I may have to purchase a few very fine shirts for greed days : but
those I have are excellent for daily wear.
I am thankful that I have been quite without occasion to use your
excellent family pills. Gumbo hath taken them with great benefit,
who grows fat and saucy upon English beef, ale, and air. He
sends his humble duty to his mistress, and prays Mrs. Mountain to
remember him to all his fellow-servants, especially Dinah and Lily,
for whom he has bought posey-rings at Tunbridge Fair.
Besides partaking of all the pleasures of the place, I hope my
honoured mother will believe that I have not l^en unmindful of
my edwioiion, I have had masters in fencing and dancing, and
my Lord Cfestlewood’s chaplain, the Reverend IVIr. Sampson, having
come hither to drink the waters, has been so good as to take a vacant
room at my lodging. Mr. S. breakfasts with me, and we read together
of a morning — ^he saying that I am not quite such a dunce as I used
to appear at home. We have read in Mr. Rapin’s History, Dr.
Barrow’s Sermons, and for amusement, Shakespeare, Mr. Pope’s
Homer, and (in French) the translation of an Arabian Work of
Tales, very diverting. Several men of learning have been staying
here besides the persons of fashion, and amongst the former was
Mr. Richardson, the author of the famous books which you and
Mountain and my dearest brother used to love so. He was pleased
when I told him that his works were in your closet in Virginia,
and begged me to convey his respectful compliments to my lady
mother. Mr. R. is a short, fat man, with little of the fire of genius
visible in his eye or person.
My aunt and my cousin, the Lady Maria, desire their affectionate
compliments to you, and with best regards for Mountain, to whom
I enclose a note, I am.
Honoured Madam,
Your dutiful Son,
H. Esmond Warrington.
Note in Madam Esmond^ s handumting. — From my son. Received
October 15, at Richmond. Sent 16 jars preserved peaches.
A LETTER TO VIRGINIA
m
224ib. best tobacco, 24 finest hams, per Royal WiUiam of Liverpool,
8 jars peaches, 12 hams for my nephew, the Rt. Honourable the
Earl of Castlewood. 4 jars, 6 hams for the Baroness Bernstein,
ditto ditto for Mrs. Lambert, of Oakhurst, Surrey, and Jcwt.
tobacco. Packet of Infallible Family Pills for Gumbo. My papa’s
large silver gilt shoe- buckles for H. and red silver-laced saddle cloth.
II (enclosed in No. I)
For Mrs. Mountain.
What do you miertf you silly old Mountain, by sending an order
for your poor old divadends dew at Xmas ? I’d have you to know
I don’t want your 72. lOs., and have toar your order up into 1,000
hiits. I’ve plenty of money. But I’m ahleaged to you all same.
A kiss to Fanny from Your loving
Habby.
Note in Madam Esmonds handwriting. — This note, which I
desired M. to show to me, proves that she hath a good heart, and
that she wished to show her gratitude to the family, by giving up
her half-yearly divd. (on 5002. 3 per ct.) to my boy. Hence I repri-
manded her very slightly for daring to send money to Mr. E. War-
rington, unknown to his mother. Note to Mountain not so well
spelt as letter to me.
Mem. to write to Revd. Mr. Sampson desire to know what iheolog*
books he reads with H. Recommend Law, Baxter, Drelincourt. —
Request H. to say his catechism to Mr. S., which he has never quite
be^ able to master. By next ship peaches (3), tobacco J cwt.
Hams for Mr. S.
The mother of the Vii^inians and her sons have long,
long since passed away. So how are we to account for the
fact, that of a couple of letters sent under one enclosure
and by one packet, one should be w’ell spelt, and the other
not entirely orthographical ? Had Harry found some
wonderful instructor such as exists in the present lucky
times, and who would improve his wTiting in six lessons ?
My view of the case, after deliberately examining the
two notes, is this. No. 1, in which there appears a trifling
grammatical slip (‘ the kind friends who I found and whom
took me in ’), must have been re-written from a rough
copy which had probably undergone the supervision of
a tutor or friend. The more artless composition, No. 2,
w^as not referred to the scholar who prepared No. 1 for
the maternal eye, and to whose corrections of ‘ w^ho ’ and
‘ whom ’ Mr. Warrington did not pay very close attention.
Who knows how he may have been disturbed ? A pretty
milliner may have attracted Harry’s attention out of
310
THE VIRGINIANS
window — a, dancing bear with pipe and tabor may have
passed along the common — a jockey come under his
windows to show off a horse there ? There are some days
when any of us may be ungrammatical and spell ill. Finally,
suppose Harry did not care to spell so elegantly for Mrs.
Mountain as for his lady-mother, what affair is that of the
present biographer, century, reader ? And as for your
objection that Mx. Warrington, in the above communi-
cation to his mother, showed some little hjrpocrisy and
reticence in his dealings with that venerable person, I
dare say, young folks, you in your time have written more
than one prim letter to your papas and mammas in which
not quite aU the transactions of your lives Avere narrated,
or if narrated, were exhibited in the most favourable light
for yourselves — I dare say, old folks ! you, in your time,
were not altogether more candid. There must be a certain
distance between me and my son Jacky. There must be
a respectful, an amiable, a virtuous hypocrisy Between us.
I do not in the least wish that he should treat me as his
equal, that he should contradict me, take my arm-chair,
read the new'spaper first at breakfast, ask unlimited friends
to dine when I h^ve a party of my own, and so forth. No ;
where there is not equality there must be hypocrisy.
Continue to be blind to my faults ; to hush still as mice
■when I fall asleep after dinner ; to laugh at my old jokes ;
to admire my sayings ; to be astonished at the impudence
of those unbelieving reviewers ; to be dear filial humbugs,
0 my children I In my castle I am king. Let all my
royal household back before me. ’Tis not their natural
way of walking, I know : but a decorous, becoming, and
modest behaviour highly agreeable to me. Away from
me they may do, nay, they do do, what they like. They
may jump, skip, dance, trot, tumble over head and heels,
and kick about freely, when they are out of the presence
of my majesty. Do not then, my dear young friends, be
surprised at your mother and aunt when they cry out,
‘Oh, it was highly immoral and improper of Mr. War-
rington to be wTiting home humdrum demure letters to
his dear mamma, wben he was playing all sorts of merry
pranks ! ’ — ^but drop a curtsy, and say, ‘ Yes, dear grand-
mamma ’ (or aunt as may be), " it was very WTong of him :
and I suppose you never had your fun when you were
young.’ Of course, she didn’t ! And the sun never shone,
A LEITER TO VIROIKIA
311
and the blossoms never budded, and the blood never
danced, and the fiddles never sang, in her spring-time.
Eh, Babet ! mon lait de poide et mon bonnet de nuit 1 Ho,
Betty ! my gruel and my slippers ! And go, ye frisky,
merry little souls ! and dance, and have your merry little
supper of cakes and ale !
CHAPTER XXXI
THE BEAE AND THE LEADEK
IJR candid readers
know the real state
of the case regard-
ing Harry War-
rington and that
luckless Cattarina ;
but a number of
the old ladies at
Tunbridge Wells
supposed the Vir-
ginian to be as
dissipated as any
young English
nobleman of the
highest quality,
and Madame de
Bernstein was
especially incredulous about her nephew’s innocence.
It was the old lady’s firm belief that Harry was lead-
ing not only a merry life but a wicked one, and her
wish was father to the thought that the lad might be
no better than his neighbours. An old Roman herself,
she liked her nephew to do as Rome did. All the scandal
regarding Mr. Warrington’s Lovelace adventures she eagerly
and complacently accepted. We have seen how, on one or
two occasions, he gave tea and music to the company at
the Wells : and he was so gallant and amiable to the l^es
(to ladies of a much better figure and character than the
unfortunate Cattarina), that Madame Bernstein ceased to
be disquieted regarding the silly love affair which had had
312
THE VIRGINIANS
a commencement atCg^tlewood,and relaxed in her vigilance
over Lady Maria. Some folks — many old folks — are too
selfish to interest themselves long about the affairs of their
neighbours. The baroness had her trumps to think of,
her dinners, her twinges of rheumatism : and her suspicions
regarding Maria and Harry, lately so lively, now dozed,
and kept a careless, unobservant watch. She may have
thought that the danger W’as over, or she may have ceased
to care whether it existed or not, or that artful Maria,
by her conduct, may have quite cajoled, soothed, and
misguided the old Dragon, to whose charge she was given
over. At Maria’s age, nay, earlier indeed, maidens have
learnt to be very sly, and at Madame Bernstein’s time of
life, dragons are not so fierce and alert. They cannot
turn so readily, some of their old teeth have dropped out,
and their eyes require more sleep than they need^ in days
when they were more active, venomous, and dangerous.
I, for my part, know a few female dragons, de par le Tnonde,
and, as I watch them and remember what they were,
admire the softening influence of years upon these whilom
destroyers of man- and womankind. Their scales are so
soft, that any knight with a moderate power of thrust
can strike them : their claws, once strong enough to tear
out a thousand eyes, only fall with a feeble pat that scarce
raises the skin : their tongues, from their toothless old
gums, dart a venom which is rather disagreeable than
deadly. See them trailing their languid tails, and crawling
home to their caverns at roosting time i How weak are
their powers of doing injury ! thdr maleficence how feeble !
How changed are they since the brisk days when their eyes
shot wick^ fire ; their tongue spat poison ; their breath
blasted reputation ; and they gobbl^ up a daily victim
at least !
If the good folks at Oakhxirst could not resist the testi-
mony which was brought to them regarding Harry’s ill-
doings, why should Madame Bernstein, who in the course
of her long days had had more experience of evil than all
the Oakhurst family put together, be less credulous than
they ? Of course every single old woman of her ladyship’s
society believed every story that was told about Mr. Harry
Warrington’s dissipated habits, and was ready to believe
as much more ill of him as you please. When the little
dancer w^ent back to London, as she did, it was because
THE BEAR AND THE LEADER
313
that heartless Harry deserted her. He deserted her for some-
body else, whose name was confidently given, — whose
name V — whose half-dozen names the society at Tunbridge
Wells would whisper about ; 'v\’here there congregatSi
people of all ranks and degrees, women of fashion, women
of reputation, of demi-reputation, of virtue, of no virtue, —
all mingling in the same rooms, dancing to the same fiddles,
drinking out of the same glasses at the Wells, and alike
in search of health, or society, or pleasure. A century ago
and our ancestors, the most free or the most strait-
laced, met together at a score of such merry places as that
where our present scene lies, and danced, and frisked, and
gamed, and drank at Epsom, Bath, Tunbridge, Harrogate,
as they do at Hombourg and Baden now.
Harry’s bad reputation then conoforted his old aunt
exceedingly, and eased her mind in respect to the boy’s
passion for Lady Maria. So easy was she in her mind,
that when the chaplain said he came to escort her ladyship
home, Madame Bernstein did not even care to part from
her niece. She preferred rather to keep her under her eye,
to talk to her about her wicked young cousin’s wild extrava-
gances, to whisper to her that boys would be boys, to
confide to Maria her intention of getting a proper wife for
Harry, — some one of a suitable age, — some one with
a suitable fortune, — all which pleasantries poor Maria had
to bear with as much fortitude as she could muster.
There lived, during the last century, a certain French
duke and marquis, who distinguished himself in Europe,
and America likewise, and has obliged posterity by leaving
behind him a choice volume of memoirs, which the gentle
reader is specially warned not to consult. Having per-
formed the part of Don Juan in his own country, in ours,
and in other parts of Europe, he has kindly noted down the
names of many court-beauties who fell victims to his powers
of fascination ; and very pleasant reading no doubt it must
be for the grandsons and descendants of the fashionable
persons amongst w^hom our brilliant nobleman moved,
to find the names of their ancestresses adorning M. le Due’s
sprightly pages, and their frailties recorded by the candid
wTiter who caused them.
In the course of the peregrinations of this nobleman,
he visited North America, and, as had been his custom
in Europe, proceeded straightw^ay to fall in love. And
314
THE VIRGINIANS
curious it is to contrast the elegant refinements of European
society, where, according to Monseigneur, he had but to
lay siege to a woman in order to vanquish her, vith the
simple lives and habits of the colonial folks, amongst whom
this European enslaver of hearts did not, it appears, make
a single conquest. Had he done so, he would as certainly
have narrated his victories in Pennsylvania and New
England, as he described his successes in this and his own
country. Travellers in America have cried out quite
loudly enough against the rudeness and barbarism of
transatlantic manners ; let the present writer give the
humble testimony of his experience that the conversation
of American gentlemen is generally modest, and, to the best
of his belief, the lives of the women pure.
We have said that Mr. Hapy Warrin^n brought his
colonial modesty along with him to the old country ; and
though he could not help hearing the free talk of the
persons amongst whom he lived, and who were men of
pleasure and the world, he sat pretty silent himself in the
midst of their rattle ; never indulged in double cTdendre
in his conversation with women ; had no victories over
the sex to boast of ; and was shy and awkward when he
heard such narrated by others.
This youthful modesty Mr, Sampson had remarked during
his intercourse with the lad at Castlewood, where Mr. War-
rington had more than once shown himself quite uneasy
whilst cousin Will w’as telling some of his choice stories ;
and my lord had curtly rebuked his brother, bidding him
keep Ms jokes for the ushers’ table at K^sington, and
not give needless offence to their kinsman. Hence the
exclamation of ‘ Reuerentia 'pueris which the chaplain had
addressed to his neighbour at the ordinary on Harry’s first
appearance there. Mr. Sampson, if he had not strength
sufficient to do right himself, at least had grace enough
not to offend innocent young gentlemen by his cynicism.
The chaplain was touched by Harry’s gift of the horse ;
and felt a genuine friendliness tow’ards the lad. ‘ You see,
sir,’ says he, ‘ I am of the w^orld, and must do as the rest
of the w^orld does. I have led a rough life, Mr. Warrington,
and can’t afford to be more particular than my neighbours.
Video meliora, deteriora sequor, as we said at college.
I have got a little sister, who is at boarding-school, not
very far from here, and, as I keep a decent tongue in my
THE BEAR AND THE LEADER
315
head when I am talking with my little Patty, and expect
others to do as much, sure I may try and do as much
by you.’
The chaplain was loud in his praises of Harry to his
aunt, the old baroness. She lik^ to hear him praised.
She was as fond of him as she could be of anything ; was
pleased in his company, 'wdth his good looks, his manly
courageous bearing, his blushes, which came so readily, his
bright eyes, his deep youthful voice. His shrewdness and
simplicity constantly amused her ; she would have wearied
of him long before, had he been clever, or learned, or
witty, or other than he was. ‘ We must find a good wife
for him, chaplain,’ she said to Mr. Sampson. ‘ I have one
or two in my eye, who, I think, will suit him. We must
set him up here ; he never will bear going back to his
savages again, or to live wuth his little Methodist of a
mother.’
Now about this point Mr. Sampson, too, w^as personally
anxious, and had also a wife in his eye for Harry. I sup-
pose he must have had some conversations with his lord
at Castlewood, whom we have heard expressing some inten-
tion of complimenting his chaplain with a good living or
other provision, in the event of his being able to carry
out his lordship’s wishes regarding a marriage for Lady
Maria, If his good offices could help that anxious lady
to a husband, &mpson was ready to employ them ; and
he now waited to see in what most effecti^ manner he
could bring his influence to bear.
Sampson’s society was most agreeable, and he and his
young friend were intimate in the course of a few hours.
The parson rejoiced in high spirits, good appetite, good
humour ; pretended to no sort of squeamishness, and
indulged in no sanctified hypocritical conversation ; never-
theless, he took care not to shock his young friend by any
needless outbreaks of levity or immorality of talk, initiating
liis pupil, perhaps from policy, perhaps from compunction,
only into the minor mysteries, as it were ; and not telling
him the secrets with which the unlucky adept himself was
only too familiar. With Harry, Sampson was only a brisk,
lively, jolly companion, ready for any drinking bout, or
any sport, a cockfight, a shooting match, a game at cards,
or a gallop across the common ; but his conversation was
decent, and he tried much more to amuse the young man,
316
THE VIRGINIANS
than to lead Mm astray. The chaplain was quite success-
ful ; he had immense animal spirits as well as natural wit,
and aptitude as well as experience in that business of toad-
eater which had been his calling and livelihood from his
very earliest years, — ever since he first entered college as
a servitor, and cast about to see by whose means he could
make his fortune in life. That was but satire just now,
when we said there were no toad-eaters left in the world.
There are many men of Sampson’s profession now, doubt-
less ; nay, little boys at our public schools are sent thither
at the earliest age, instructed by their parents, and put
out apprentices to toad-eating. But the flattery is not so
manifest as it used to be a hundred years since. Young
men and old have hangers-on, and led captains, but they
assume an appearance of equality, borrow money, or
swallow their toads in private, and walk abroad arm-in-
arm with the great man, and call him by his name without
his title. In those good old times, when Harry Warrington
first came to Europe, a gentleman’s toad-eater pretended
to no airs of equMity at all ; openly paid court to his
patron, called him by that name to other folks, went on
Ms errands for him, — any sort of errands wMch the patron
might devise, — call^ him ‘ sir ’ in speaking to Mm, stood up
in his pr^ence until bidden to sit down, and flattered him
ex offido. Mr. Sampson did not take the least shame in
speaking of Harry as his young patron, — ^as a young Vir-
ginian nobleman recommended to him by Ms other noble
patron, the Earl of Castlewood. He was proud of appearing
at Harry’s side, and as his humble retainer, in public
talked about Mm to the company, gave orders to Harry’s
tradesmen, from whom, let us hope, he received a per-
centage in return for his recommendations, performed all
the functions of aide de camp — others, if our young gentle-
man demanded them from the obsequious divine, who had
gaily discharged the duties of ami dw 'priTtce to ever so
many young men of fasMon, since Ms own entrance into
the world. It must be confessed that, since his arrival in
Europe, Mr. Warrington had not been uniformly lucky in
the friendships which he had made.
‘What a reputation, sir, they have made for you in
this place ! ’ cries Mr. Sampson, coming back from the
coffee-house to his patron. ‘Monsieur de Richelieu was
nothing to you \ ’
THE BEAR AND THE LEADER
317
‘ How do you mean, Monsieur de Richelieu ? — Never
was at Minorca in my life,’ says downright Harry, who
had not heard of those victories at home, which made the
French duke famous.
Mr. Sampson explained. The pretty widow Patcham who
had just arrived w^as certainly desperate about Mr. War-
rington : her way of going on at the rooms, the night
before, proved that. As for Mrs. Hooper, that w’as a know n
case, and the alderman had fetched his w^ife back to
London for no other reason. It w’as the talk of the whole
Wells.
‘ Who says so ? ’ cries out Harry, indignantly. ‘ I should
like to meet the man who dares say so, and confound the
villain ! ’
‘ I should not like to show him to you,’ says Mr. Samp-
son, laughing. ‘ It might be the worse for him.’
" It’s a shame to speak with such levity about the
character of ladies or of gentlemen, either,’ continues
Mr. Warrington, pacing up and down the room in a fume.
‘ So I told them,’ says the chaplain, wagging his head and
looking very much moved and very grave, though, if the
truth were knowm, it had never come into his mind at all
to be angry at hearing charges of this nature against Harry.
^It’s a ^ame, I say, to talk away the reputation of
any man or woman as people do here. Do you know’, in
our country, a fellow’s ears would not be safe ; and a little
before I left home, three brothers shot down a man for
having spoken ill of their sister.’
‘ Serve the villain right ! ’ cries Sampson.
‘Already they have had that calumny about me set
a-going here, Sampson, — ^about me and the poor, little
French dancing-girl.’
‘ I have heard,’ says Mr. Sampson, shaking powder out
of his wig.
‘ Wicked ; wasn’t it ? ’
‘ Abominable.’
‘ They said the very same thing about my Lord March.
Isn’t it shameful ? ’
‘Indeed it is,’ says Mr. Sampson, preserving a face of
w’onderful gravity.
‘I don’t know’ what I should do if these stories were
to come to my mother’s ears. It would break her heart,
I do believe it w’ould. Why, only a few days before you
318
THE VIRGINIANS
came, a military friend of mine, Mr. WoKe, told me how
the most horrible lies were circulated about me. Good
Heavens 1 What do they think a gentleman of my name
and country can be capable of — ^I a seducer of women ?
They might as well say I was a horse-stealer or a house-
breaker. I vow if I hear any man say so, I’ll have
his ears I ’
‘I have read, sir, that the Grand Seignior of Turkey
has bushels of ears sometimes sent in to him,’ says Mr. Samp-
son, laughing. ‘ If you took all those that had heard
scandal against you or others, what baskets you w^ould fill ! ’
‘ And so I would, Sampson, as soon as look at ’em : —
any fellow’s who said a word against a lady or a gentleman
of honour I ’ cries the Virginian.
‘ If you’ll go down to the Well, you’ll find a harvest of
’em. I just came from there. It was the high tide of
scandal. Detraction was at its height. And you may see
the nymphos discerUes and the aures satyrorum acviaSy cries
the chaplain, with a shrug of his shoulders.
‘ That may be as you say, Sampson,’ Mr. Warring-
ton replies ; ‘ but if ever I hear any man speak against
my character I’ll punish him. Mark that.’
‘ I shall be very sorry for his sake, that I should ; for
you’ll mark him in a way he won’t like, sir ; and I know
you are a man of your word.’
‘ You may be sure of that, Sampson. And now shall
we go to dinner, and afterwards to my Lady Trumping-
ton’s tea ? ’
‘ You know% sir, I can’t resist a card or a bottle,’ says
Mr. Sampson. ‘ Let us have the last first and then the
first shall come last.’ And with this the two gentlemen
w^ent oS to their accustomed place of refection.
That was an age in which wine-bibbing was more common
than in our politer time ; and, especially since the arrival
of General Braddock’s army in his native country, our
young Virginian had acquired rather a liking for the filling
of bumpers and the calling of toasts ; having heard that
it was a point of honour among the officers never to decline
a t^st or a challenge. So Harry and his chaplain drank
their claret in peace and plenty, naming, as the simple
custom was, some favourite lady with each glass.
The chaplain had reasons of his own for desiring to know
how far the affair between Harry and my Lady Maria had
THE BEAR AND THE LEADER
319
gone ; whether it was advancing, or w’hether it was ended ;
and he and his young friend were just warm enough with
the claret to be able to talk with that great eloquence,
that candour, that admirable friendliness, which gocxi wine
taken in a rather injudicious quantity inspires. O kindly
harvests of the Aquitanian grape ! O sunny banks of
Garonne ! 0 friendly caves of Gledstane, w*here the dusky
flasks lie recondite ! May we not say a word of thanks
for all the pleasure w^e ow-e you ? Are the Temperance
men to be allowed to shout in the public places ? are the
Vegetarians to bellow ^ Cabbage for ever ’ ? and may we
m<mest Oenophilists not sing the praises of our favourite
plant ? After the drinking of good Bordeaux w’ine, there
is a point (I do not say a pint) at which men arrive, w’hen
all the generous faculties of the soul are aw’akened and in
full vigour; w'hen the wit brightens and breaks out in
sudden flashes ; when the intellects are keenest ; wiien
the pent-up words and confined thoughts get a night-rule,
and rush abroad and disport themselves ; when the kindest
affections come out and shake hands with mankind, and the
timid Truth jumps up naked out of his well and proclaims
himself to all the w’orld. How, by the kind influence of the
wine-cup, we succour the poor and humble I How bravely
we rush to the rescue of the oppressed I I say, in the face
of all the pumps which ever spouted, that there is a moment
in a bout of good wine at which, if a man could but remain,
wit, wisdom, courage, generosity, eloquence, happiness, were
his ; but the moment passes, and that other glass somehow
spoils the state of beatitude. There is a headache in the
morning ; we are not going into Parliament for our native
town ; we are not going to shoot those French officers
who have been speaking disrespectfully of our country ;
and poor Jeremy Diddler calls about eleven o’clock for
another haK-sovereign, and we are unwell in bed, and can’t
see him, and send him empty aw^ay.
Well, then, as they sat over their generous cups, the
company having departed, and the — th bottle of claret
being brought in by Monsieur Barbeau, the chaplain found
himseK in an eloquent state, with a strong desire for
inculcating sublime moral precepts, whilst Harry was moved
by an extreme longing to explain his w^hole private history,
and impart aU his present feelings to his new friend. Mark
that fact. Why must a man say everything that comes
320
THE VIRGINIANS
uppermost in his noble mind, because forsooth he has
swallowed a half-pint more of wine than he ordinarily
drinks ? Suppose I had committed a murder (of course
I allow the sherry and champagne at dinner), should
I announce that homicide somewhere about the third
bottle (in a small party of men) of claret at dessert ? Of
course : and hence the fidelity to water-gruel announced
a few pages back.
* I am glad to hear what your conduct has really been
with regard to the Cattarina, Mr. Warrington ; I am glad
from my soul 1 ’ says the impetuous chaplain. ‘ The wine
is with you. You have shown that you can bear down
calumny, and resist temptation. Ah ! my dear sir, men
are not all so fortunate. What famous good wine this
is ! ’ and he sucks up a glass with ‘ A toast from you, my
dear sir, if you please ! ’
‘ I give you “ Miss Fanny Mountain, of Virginia says
Mr. Warrington, filling a bumper as his thoughts fly straight-
w’ay, ever so many thousand miles, to home.
‘One of your American conquests, I suppose,’ says the
chaplain.
‘ Nay, she is but ten years old, and I have never made
any conquests at all in Virginia, Mr. Sampson,’ says the
young gentleman,
‘You are like a true gentleman, and don’t kiss and
tell, sir,’
‘I neither kiss nor tell. It isn’t the custom of our
country, Sampson, to ruin girls, or frequent the society
of low women. We Virginian gentlemen honour women :
we don’t wish to bring them to shame,’ cries the young
toper, looking very proud and handsome. ‘ The young
lady whose name I mentioned hath lived in our family
since her infancy, and I would shoot the man who did
her a wrong ; — ^by Heaven, I would.’
‘ Your sentiments do you honour ! Let me shake hands
with you ! I wiM shake hands with you, Mr. Warrington,’
cried the enthusiastic Sampson. ‘And let me tell you,
’tis the grasp of honest friendship offered you, and not
merely the poor retainer paying court to the wealthy
patron. No ! with such liquor as this, all men are equal ; —
faith, all men are rich, whilst it lasts 1 and Tom Sampson
is as w^ealthy with his bottle as your honour with all the
acres of your principality ! ’
THE BEAR AND THE LEADER
321
‘ Let us have another bottle of riches,’ says Harry, with
a laugh. ‘ Encore du cachet jaune, mon bon Monsieur
Barbeau 1 ’ and exit Monsieur !l^rbeau to the caves below.
^ Another bottle of riches ! Capital, capital 1 How
beautifully you speak French, Mr. Harry.’
‘ I do speak it 'well,’ says Harry. ‘ At least, when
I speak. Monsieur Barbeau understands me well enough.’
‘ You do everything well, I think. You succeed in what-
ever you try. That is why they have fancied here you
have won the hearts of so many w’omen, sir.’
^ There you go again about the women ! I tell you
I don’t like these stories about women. Confound me,
Sampson, why is a gentleman’s character to be blackened
so ? ’
‘ Well, at any rate there is one, unless my eyes deceive
me very much indeed, sir ! ’ cries the chaplain.
‘ Whom do you mean ? ’ asked Harry, flushing very red.
* Nay. I name no names. It isn’t for a poor chaplain
to meddle with his betters’ doings, or to know their
thoughts,’ says Mr. Sampson.
^ Thoughts ! what thoughts, Sampson ? ’
‘ I fancied I saw on the part of a certain lovely and
respected lady at Castlewood, a preference exhibited. I
fancied on the side of a certain distinguished young gentle-
man a strong liking manifested itself : but I may have been
wrong, and ask pardon.’
‘ Oh, Sampson, Sampson ! ’ broke out the young man.
‘ I tell you I am miserable. I tell you I have been longing
for some one to confide in, or ask advice of. You do
know, then, that there has been something going on —
something between me and — Help Mr. Sampson, Monsieur
Barbeau — ^and — some one else ? ’
" I have watched it this month past,’ says the chaplain.
‘ Confound me, sir, do you mean you have been a spy
on me ? ’ says the other hotly.
‘ A spy ! You made little disguise of the matter,
Mr. Warrington, and her ladyship wasn’t a much better
hand at decei'ving. You were always together. In the
shrubberies, in the walks, in the village, in the galleries
of the house, — ^you always found a pretext for being
together, and plenty of eyes besides mine watched you.’
‘ Gracious powers 1 What did you see, Sampson ? ’ cries
the lad.
YIEGIXIANS M
322
THE VIEGINIAKS
* Nay, sir, ’tis forbidden to kiss and tell. I say so again,*
says the chaplain.
The young man turned ve^ red. " Oh, Sampson ! * he
cried, ‘ can I — can I confide in you ? ’
* Dearest sir — dear generous youth — ^you know I would
shed my heart’s blood for you ! * exclaims the chaplain,
squeezing his patron’s hand, and turning a brilliant pair
of eyes ceiiingwards.
‘ Oh, Sampson ! I tell you I am miserable. With all
this play and wine, whilst I have been here, I tell you
I have been trying to drive away care. I own to you that
when we were at Castlewood there was things passed
between a certain lady and me.’
The parson gave a slight whistle over his glass of bor-
deaux.
‘And they’ve made me wretched, those things have.
I mean, you see, that if a gentleman has given Ms word,
why, it’s his word, and he must stand by it, you know.
I mean that I thought I loved her, — and so I do very much,
and she’s a most dear, kind, darling, affectionate creature,
and very handsome, too,— quite beautiful ; but then, you
know, our ages, Sampson. Think of our ages, Sampson !
She’s as old as my mother ! ’
‘ Who woiffd never forgive you.’
‘I don’t intend to let anybody meddle in my affairs,
not Madam Esmond nor anybody else,’ cries Harry : ‘ but
you see, Sampson, she is old — ^and, oh hang it I Why did
Aunt Bernstein tell me ? ’
‘ Tell you what ? ’
‘ Something I can’t divulge to anybody, something that
tortures me 1 ’
‘ Not about the — the the chaplain paused ; he was
going to say about her ladysMp’s little affair with the
French dancing-master ; about other little anecdotes
affecting her character. But he had not drunk wine enough
to be quite candid, or too much, and was past the real
moment of virtue.
‘ Yes, yes, every one of ’em false — every one of ’em ! ’
shrieks out Harry.
‘ Great powers, what do you mean ? ’ asks Ms friend.
‘ These, sir, these i ’ says Harry, beating a tattoo on Ms
own wMte teeth. ‘I didn’t know it when I asked her.
I swear I didn’t know it. Oh, it’s horrible — ^it’s horrible !
THE BEAR AM) THE LEADER
323
and it has caused me nights of agony, Sampson. My
dear old grandfather had a set, a iirenchman at Charles-
town made them for him, and we used to look at ’em
grinning in a tumbler, and when they were out, his jaws
used to fall in — I never thought she had ’em.’
‘ Had what, sir ? ’ again asked the chaplain.
‘ Confound it, sir, don’t you see I mean teeth ? ’ says
Harry, rapping the table.
‘ Nay, only two.’
‘ Ana how the devil do you know, sir ? ’ asks the young
man fiercely.
‘ I — 1 had it from the maid. She had two teeth knocked
out by a stone which cut her lip a little, and they have
been replaced.’
‘ Oh, Sampson, do you mean to say they ain’t all
sham ones ? ’ cries the boy.
‘ But two, sir, at least so Peggy told me, and she would
just as soon have blabbed about the whole two-and-thirty —
the rest are as sound as yours, which are beautiful.’
* And her hair, Sampson, is that all right, too ? ’ asks
the young gentleman.
‘ ’Tis lovely — have seen that. I can take my oath to
1 Her ladyship can sit upon it ; and her figure is
"very fine ; and her skin is as white as snow ; and her heart
is the kindest that ever was ; and I know, that is I feel
sure, it is very tender about you, Mr. Warrington.’
‘ Oh, Sampson I Heaven — ^Heaven Mess you I What a
weight you’ve taken off my mind with those — those —
never mind them I Oh, Sam ! How happy — ^that is, no,
no — Oh, how miserable I am t She’s as old as Madam
Esmond — ^by George she is — she’s as old as my mother.
You w'ouldn’t have a fellow marry a woman as old as his
mother ? It’s too bad : by George it is. It’s too bad.’
And here, I am sorry to say, Hary Esmond Warrington,
Esquire, of Castlewood, in Virginia, began to cry. The
delectable point, you see, must have been passed several
glasses ago.
‘ You don’t want to marry her, then ? ’ asks the chaplain.
‘ What’s that to you, sir ? I’ve promised her, and an
Esmond — a,Virginia Esmond, mind that — ^Mr, What’s-your-
name — Sampson — ^has but his word I ’ The sentiment was
noble, but delivered by Harry with rather a doubtful
articulation.
324
THE YIBGINIANS
^ Mind you, I said a Virginia Esmond,’ continued poor
Harry, lifting up his finger, ‘I don’t mean the younger
branch here. I don’t mean Will, who robbed me about
the horse, and whose bones I’ll break. I give you Lady
Maria — ^Heaven bless her, and Heaven bless you^ Sampson,
and you deserve to be a bishop, old boy ! ’
^ There are letters between you, I suppose ? ’ says
Sampson.
^ Letters ! Dammy, she’s alw^ays wilting me letters ! —
never gets me into a window but she sticks one in my cuff.
Letters, that is a good idea. Look here ! Here’s letters ! ’
And he threw down a pocket-book containing a heap of
papers of the poor lady’s composition.
‘ Those are letters, indeed. What a postbag ! ’ says the
chaplain.
‘But any man who touches them — dies — dies on the
spot I ’ shrieks Hany, starting from his seat, and reeling
towards his sword ; which he draws, and then stamps
with his foot, and says, ‘ Ha ! ha 1 ’ and then lunges at
M. Barbeau, who skips away from the lunge behind the
chaplain, who looks rather alarmed. [I know we could
have had a much more exciting picture than either of those
we present of Harry this month, and] the lad with his hair
dishevelled, raging about the room ftarnberge au vent, and
pinking the afWghted innkeeper and chaplain, [would have
afford^ a good subject for the pencil.] But oh, to think
of him stumbling over a stool, and prostrated by an enemy
who has stole away his brains I Come, Gumbo ! and help
your master to bed !
325
CHAPTER XXXII
IN WHICH A FAMILY COACH IS ORDERED
B pleasing duty now is to divulge
the secret which Mr. Lambert
whispered in his wife’s ear at the
close of the antepenultimate
chapter, and the publication of
which caused such great pleasure
to the whole of the Oakhurst
family. As the hay was in, the
com not ready for cutting, and
by consequence the farm horses
disengaged, why, asked Colonel
Lambert, should they not be put
into the coach, and should we not
all pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells,
ta^g friend Wolfe at Westerham
on our way ?
Maanma embraced this proposal, and I dare say the
geotleinan who made it. .^1 the children jumped for joy.
The girls wm.t off straightway to get their b^t calamancoes,
paduasoys, falbalas, furbelows, capes, cardinals, sacks,
negligees, solitaires, caps, ribbons, mantms, clocked
stoclnngs, and high-heeled shoes, and I know not what
articles of toilette. Mamma’s best robes were taken from
the presses, whence they only issued on rare, solemn
occasions, retiring immediately afterwards to lavender and
seclusion ; the brave colonel produced his laced hat and
\vaistcoat and silver-hilted hanger ; Charley rejoiced in
a rasee holiday suit of his father’s, in w’hich the colonel
had been married, and which Mrs. Lambert cut up, not
without a pang. Ball and Dumpling had their tails and
manes tied with ribbon, and Chump, the old white cart-
horse, went as unicorn leader, to help the carriage-horses
up the first hilly five miles of the road from OaMiurst to
Westerham. The carriage was an ancient vehicle, and was
believed to have served in the procession which had brought
George I from Greenwich to London, on his first arrival
to assume the sovereignty of these realms. It had belonged
326
THE VIRGINIANS
to Mr. Lambert’s father, and the family had been in the
habit of regarding it, ever since they could remember any-
thing, as one of the most splendid coaches in the three
kingdoms. Brian, coachman, and — must it also be cwmed ?
— ^ploughman, of the Oakhurst family, had a place on the
box, with Mr. Charley by his side. The precious clothes
were packed in imperials on the roof. The coloners pistols
were put in the pockets of the carriage, and the blunderbuss
hung behind the box, in reach of Brian, who was an old
soldier. No highwayman, how'ever, molested the convoy ;
not even an innkeeper levied contributions on Colonel
Lambert, who, with a slender purse and a large family,
was not to be plundered by those or any other depredators
on the king’s highway ; and a reasonable cheap modest
lodging had been engaged for them by young Colonel
Wolfe, at the house where he was in the habit of put-
ting up, and whither he himself accompanied them on
horsebisk.
It happened that these lodgings were opposite Madame
Bernstein’s : and as the Oakhurst family reached their
quarters on a Saturday evening, they could see chair after
chair discharging powdered b^ux and patched and bro-
caded beauties at the baroness’s door, who was holding
one of her many card parties. The sun was not yet down
(for our ancestors b^an their dissipations at early hours,
and were at meat, <£ink, or cards, any time after three
o’clock in the afternoon until any time in the ni^t or
morning), and the young counti^ ladies and their mother
from their window could see the various personages as
they passed into the Bernstdm rout. Colonel Wolfe told
the la^^ who most of the characters were. ’Twas almost
as delightful as going to the party themselves, Hetty and
Theo thought, for they not only could see the guests
arriving, but look into the baroness’s open casements and
watch many of them there. Of a few of the personages
we have before had a glimpse. When the Duchess of
Queensberry passed, and Mr. Wolfe explained who she was,
Martin Lambert was ready with a score of lines about
* Kitty, beautiful and young from his favourite Mat Prior.
‘ Think that that old lady was once like you, girls ! ’
cries the colonel.
‘ Like us, papa ? Well, certainly we never set up for
being beauti^ i ’ says Miss Hetty, tossing up her little head.
A FAAHLY COACH IS ORDERED 327
* Yes, like you, you little baggage ; like you at this
moment, who want to go to that &im yonder : —
‘ Inflamed with rage at sad restraint
Which wise mamma ordained.
And sorely vexed to play the saint
Whilst wit and beauty reigned.’
‘ We were never invited, papa ; and I am sure if there’s
no beauty more worth seeing than that, the wit can’t be
much w^orth the hearing,’ again says the satirist of the
family.
‘ Oh, but he’s a rare poet. Mat Prior ! ’ continues the
colonel ; ‘ though, mind you, girls, you’ll skip over all the
poems I have marked with a cross. A rare poet ! and to
think you should see one of his heroines 1 “ Fondness
prevailed, mamma gave way ” (she always will, Mrs. Lam-
bert !) —
* Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way, —
Kitty at heart’s desire
Obtained the chariot for a day.
And set the world on fire I ’
‘ I am sure it must have been very inflammable,’ says
nlammal <
‘So it was, my dear, twenty years ago, much more
inflammable than it is now,’ remarks the colonel.
‘ Nonsense, Mr. Lambert,’ is mamma’s answer.
‘ Look, look ! ’ cries Hetty, running forward and pointing
to the little square, and the covered gallery, where was
the door leading to Madame Bernstein’s apartments, and
round which stood a crowd of street urchins, idlers, and
yokels, watching the company.
‘ It’s Harry Warrington ! ’ exclaims Theo, waving a
handkerchief to the young Virginian : but Warrington did
not see Miss Lambert. The Virginian was walking arm-
in-arm with a portly clergyman in a crisp rustling silk
gown, and the two went into Madame de Bernstein’s door.
‘ I heard him preach a most admirable sermon here last
Sunday,’ says Mr. Wolfe : ‘ a little theatrical, but most
striking and eloquent.’
‘You seem to be here most Sundays, James,’ says
hlrs. Lambert.
‘And Monday, and so on till Saturday,’ adds the
328
THE VIRGINIANS
colonel. ‘ See, Harry has beautified himself already, hath
his hair in buckle, and I have no doubt is going to the
drum, too.’
‘ I had rather sit quiet generally of a Saturday evening,’
says sober Mr. Wolfe ; ‘ at any rate away from card-
playing and scandal ; but I own, dear Mrs. Lambert, I am
under orders. Shall I go across the way and send Mr. War-
rington to you ? ’
‘No, let him have his sport. We shall see him to-
morrow. He won’t care to be disturbed amidst his fine
folks by us country people,’ said meek Mrs. Lambert.
‘ I am glad he is with a clergyman who preaches so well,’
says Theo, softly ; and her eyes seemed to say, You see,
good people, he is not so bad as you thought him, and as
I, for my part, never believed him to be. ‘ The clergyman
has a very kind, handsome f€^e.’
‘ Here comes a greater clej^gyman,’ cries Mr. Wolfe : ‘ it
is my Lord of Salisbuiy, with his blue ribbon, and a chaplain
behind him.’
‘ And whom a mercy’s name have we here ? ’ breaks in
Mrs. Lambert, as a sedan-chair, covered with gilding, topped
with no less than five earl’s coronets, carried by bearers
in richly laced clothes, and preceded by three footmen in
the same splendid livery, now came up to Madame de
Bernstein’s door. The bishop, who had been about to
enter, stopped, and ran back with the most respectful bows
and curtsies to the sedan-chair, giving his hand to the
lady who stepped thence.
‘ Who on earth is this ? ’ asks Mrs. Lambert.
‘ Sprechen Sie Deutsch ? Ja, mein Herr. Nichts ver-
stand,’ says the waggish coloneL
‘ Pooh, Martin.’
‘Well, if you can’t understand High Dutch, my love,
how can I help it ? Your education w^as neglected at
school. Can you understand heraldry ? — I know you can.’
‘ I make,’ cries Charley, reciting the shield, ‘ three merions
on a field or, with an earl’s coronet.’
‘ A countess’s coronet, my son. The Countess of Yar-
mouth, my son.’
‘ And pray who is she ? ’
‘ It hath ever been the custom of our sovereigns to
advance persons of distinction to honour,’ continues the
oolonel, gravely, ‘and this eminent lady hath been so
A FAMILY COACH IS ORDERED
329
promoted by our gracious monarch, to the rank of countesis
of this kingdom."
* But why, papa ? ’ asked the daughters together,
‘ Never mind, gpls ! " said mamma.
But that incorrigible colonel would go on.
‘ Y, my children, is one of the last and the most awk-
ward letters of the whole alphabet. When I tell you
stories, you are always saying Why. Wliy should my
lord bij^op be cringing to that lady ? Look at him
rubbing his fat hands together, and smiling into her
face ! It"s not a handsome face any longer. It is all
painted red and white, like Scaramouch’s in the panto-
mime. See, there comes another blue-ribbon, as I live.
My Lord Bamborough. The descendant of the Hotspurs,
The proudest man in England. He stops, he bows, he
smiles ; he is hat in hand, too. See, she taps him with
her fan. Get away, you crowd of little blackguard boys,
and don’t tread on the robe of the lady whom the kmg
delights to honour.’
‘ But why does the king honour her ? ’ ask the girls
once more.
^ There goes that odious last letter but one ! Did you
ev^ hear of her grace the Duchess of Kendal ? No. Of
the of Portsmouth f Non 'plus. Of the Duchess
of La Valli&*e ? Of Fair Rosamond, then ? ’
‘ Hush, papa ! There is no need to bring blushes on the
cheeks of my dear ones, Martin Lambert 1 ’ said the mother,
putting her finger to her husband’s lip.
‘ ’Tis not I ; it is their sacred Majesties who are the
cause of the shame,’ cries the son of the old republican.
‘Think of the bishops of the Church and the proudest
nobility of the world cringing and bowing before that
painted High Dutch Jezebel. Oh, it’s a shame ! a shame ! ’
‘ Confusion ! ’ here broke out Colonel Wolfe, and, making
a dash at his hat, ran from the room. He had seen the
young lady whom he admired and her guardian walking
across the Pantiles on foot to the baroness’s party, and they
came up whilst the Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden. w^as
engaged in conversation with the two lords spiritual and
temporal, and these two made the lowest reverences and
bows to the countess, and w^aited until she had passed in
at the door on the bishop’s arm.
Theo turned away from the window with a sad, almost
M 3
330
THE VIROmiANS
awe-stricken face. Hetty still remained there, looking from
it with indignation in her ey^, and a little red spot on each
cheek.
‘A penny for little Hetty’s thoughts/ says mamma,
coming to the window to lead the child away.
‘ I am thinking what I should do if I saw papa bowing
to that woman,’ says Hetty.
Tea and a hissing kettle here made their appearance,
and the family sat down to partake of their evening meal,
leaving, however. Miss Hetty, from their place, command
of the window, vrhich she begged her brother not to close.
That young gentleman had been down amongst the crowd
to inspect the armorial bearings of the countess’s and other
sedans, no doubt, and also to invest sixpence in a cheese-
cake by mamma’s order and his own desire, and he returned
presently with this delicacy wrapped up in a paper.
‘ Look, mother/ he comes back and says, ‘ do you see
that big man in brown, beating aJl the pillars with his
stick ? That is the learned Mr. Johnson. He comes to
the Friars sometimes to see our master. He was sitting
with some JEriends just now at the tea-table before Mrs.
Brown’s tart-diop. They have tea there, twopence a cup ;
I heard Mr. Johnson say he had had seventeen cups —
that makes two-and-tenpence — ^what a aigM of money for
tea!’
‘ What would you have, Charley ? ’ a&fe Theo.
' I think I would have cheese-cakes,’ says Charley, sighing,
as his teeth closed on a large slice, ‘ and the gentleman
whom Mr. Johnson was with/ continues Charley, with his
mouth quite full, ‘ was Mr. iUohardson, who wrote
‘ Clarissa I ’ cry ^ the women in a breath, and run to
the window to see their favourite writer. By this time the
sun was sunk, the stars w^ twinkling overhead, and the
footman came and lighted the candles in the baroness’s
room opposite our spies.
Theo and her mother were standing together looking
from their place of observation. There was a small illumina-
tion at jM&s. Brown’s tart- and tea-shop, by which our
friends could see one lady getting Mr. Richardson’s hat
and stick, and another tying a shawl round his neck,
after which he walked home.
‘ Oh, dear me I he does not look like Grandison ! ’ cries
Theo.
A FAMILY COACH IS ORDERED
331
I rather think I wish we had not seen him, my dear/
says mamma, who has been described as a most sentimental
woman and eager novel-reader ; and here again they w^ere
interrupted by Miss Hetty, w’ho cried :
"Never mind that little fat man, but look yonder,
mamma/
And they looked yonder. And they saw, in the first
place, Mr. Warrington undergoing the honour of a pre-
sentation to the Countess of Yarmouth, who was still
followed by the obsequious peer and prelate with the blue
ribbons- And now the countess graciously sat down to
a card-table, the bishop and the earl, and a fourth person
being her partners. And now Mr. Warrington came into
the embrasure of the window' with a lady whom they
recognized as the lady w'hom they had seen for a few
minutes at Oakhurst.
‘ How much finer he is,’ remarks mamma.
" How he is improved in his looks. What has he done
to himself ? ’ asks Theo.
" Look at his grand lace frills and ruffles 1 My dear, he
has not got on our shirts any more,’ cries the matron.
" What are you talking about, girls ? ’ asks papa, reclining
on his sofa, where, perhaps, he was dozing after the fashion
of honest house-fathers.
The girls said how Hairy Warrington was in the window,
talking with his cousin L^y Blaria Esmond.
" Come away 1 ’ cries papa. ‘ You have no right to be
spying the young fellow. Dow'n with the curtains, I say ! ’
And dow'n the curtains went, so that the girls saw
no more of Madame Bernstein’s guests or doings for that
night-
I pray you not be angry at my remarking, if only by way
of contrast betw'een these two opposite houses, that while
Madame Bernstein and her guests — bishop, dignitaries,
noblemen, and what not — ^were gambling or talking scandal,
or devouring champagne and chickens (which I hold to be
venial sin), or doing honour to her ladyship the king’s
favourite, the Countess of Yarmouth- Walmoden, our
country friends in their lodgings knelt round their table,
whither Mr. Brian the coachman came as silently as his
creaking shoes would let him, whilst Mr. Lambert, standing
up, read in a low voice, a prayer that Heaven \vould
lighten their darkness and defend them from the perils of
THE VIRGINIANS
m
that night, and a supplication that it would grant the
request of those two or three gathered together.
Our young folks were up betimes on Sunday morning,
and arrayed themselves in those smart new dresses -which
were to fascinate the Tunbridge folks, and, -with the escort
of brother Charley, paced the little town, and the quaint
Pantiles, and the pretty common, long ere the company
-was at breakfast, or the bells had rung to church. It was
Hester who found out where Harry Warrington’s lodging
must be, by remarking Mr. Gumbo in an undress, with
his lovely hair in curl-papers, drawing a pair of red curtains
aside, and opening a window-sash, whence he thrust his
head and inhaled the sweet morning breeze. Mr. Gumbo
did not happen to see the young people from Oakhurst,
though they beheld him clearly enough. He leaned grace-
fully from the window ; he waved a large feather brush
with which he condescended to dust the furniture of the
apartment within ; he affably engaged in conversation with
a cherry-cheeked milkmaid, who was lingering under the
casement, and kissed Ms lily hand to her. Gumbo’s hand
sparkled with rings, and Ms person was decorated -with
a profusion of jewellery — gifts, no doubt, of the fair who
appreciated the young African. Once or twice more before
breakfast-time the girls passed near that -window. It
remained open, but the room behind it was blank. No
face of Harry Warrington appeared there. Neith^ spoke
to the other of the subject on which both were brooMng.
Hetty was a little provoked with Charley, who was
clamorous about breakfast, and told Mm he was always
thinking of eating. In reply to her sarcastic inquiry, he
artlessly owned he should like another cheese-cake, and
good-natured Theo, laughing, said she had a sixpence, and
if the cake-shop were open of a Sunday morning Charley
should have one. The cake-shop was open : and Theo
took out her little purse, netted by her dearest friend at
school, and containing her pocket-piece, her grandmother’s
guinea, her slender little store of shillings — ^nay, some copper
mouey at one end ; and she treated Charley to the meal
which he loved,
A great deal of fine company was at church. There
was that funny old duchess, and old Madame Bernstein, with
Xiady Maria at her side, and Mr. Wolfe, of course, by the
A FAMILY COACH IS ORDERED m
side of Miss Lowther, and singing with her out of the same
psalm-book ; and Mx. Richardson with a bevy of ladies.
One of them is Miss Fielding, papa tells them after church,
Harry Fielding’s sister. ‘Oh, girls, w^hat good company he
was I And his books are worth a dozen of your milksop
Pamelas and Clarissas, Mrs. Lambert : but what woman
ever loved true humour ? And there was Mr. Johnson
sitting amongst the charity children. Did you see how
he turned round to the altar at the Belief, and upset two
or three of the scared little urchins in leather breeches t
And what a famous sermon Harry’s parson gave, didn’t
he ? A sermon about scandal. How he touched up some of
the old harridans who were seated round ! Why wasn’t
Mr. Warrington at church ? It was a shame he wasn’t at
church.’
‘ I really did not remark whether he was there or not,’
says Miss Hetty, tossing her head up.
But Theo, who was all truth, said, ^ Yes, I thought of him,
and was sorry he was not there ; and so did you think' of
him, Hetty.’
^ I did no such thing, miss,’ persists Hetty.
' Then why did you whisper to me it was Harry’s clergy-
man who preached ? ’
of Mr. Warrington’s clergyman is not to think
of Mr. Warrington. It was a nacSt excellent sermon,
certainly, and the children sang most dreadfully out of
tune. And there is Lady Maria at the window opposite,
smelling at the roses ; and that is Mr. Wolfe’s step, I know
his great military tramp. Right, left — aright, left I How
do you do, Colonel Wolfe ? ’
‘ Why do you look so glum, James ? ’ asks Colonel
Lambert, good-naturedly. ‘ Has the charmer been scolding
thee, or is thy conscience pricked by the sermon ? Mr.
Sampson, isn’t the parson’s name ? A famous preacher,
on my word ! ’
‘ A pretty preacher, and a pretty practitioner ! ’ says
Mr. Wolfe, with a shrug of his shoulders.
^ Why, I thought the discourse did not last ten minutes,
and madam did not sleep one single wink during the sermon,
didst thou, Molly ? ’
‘ Did you see when the fellow came into church ? ’ asked
the indignant Colonel Wolfe. ® He came in at the open door
of the common, just in time, and as the psalm was over,’
334
THE VIRGINIANS
" Well, he had been reading the service probably to some
sick person, there are many here,’ remarks Mrs. Lambert,
^ Reading the service ! Oh, my good Mrs. Lambert *
Do you know where I found him ? I went to look for
your young scapegrace of a Virginian.’
‘ His own name is a very pretty name, I’m sure,’ cries
out Hetty. ‘ It isn’t Scapegrace ! It is Henry Esmond
Warrington, Esquire.’
* Miss Hester, I found the parson in his cassock, and
Henry Esmond Warrington, Esquire, in his bed-gown,
at a quarter before eleven o’clock in the morning, when all
the Sunday bells were ringing, and they were playing over
a game of piquet they had had the night before ! ’
‘ Well, numbers of good people play at cards of a Sunday.
The king plays at cards of a Sunday.’
‘ Hush, my dear ! ’
‘ I know he does,’ says Hetty, ‘ with that painted person
we saw yesterday, that Countess What-d’you-call-her ? ’
‘ I think, my dear Miss Hester, a clergyman had best
take to God’s books instead of the Devil’s books on that
day — ^and so I took the liberty of telling your parson.’
Hetty looked as if she thought it was a liberty which
Mr. Wolfe had taken ! * And I told our young friend that
I thought he had better have been on his way to church
than there in his bed-gown.’
‘ You wouldn’t have Harry go to church in a dressing-
gown and nightcap, Colonel Wolfe ? That vxyM be a pretty
sight, indeed I ’ again says Hetty fiercely.
‘ I would have my little girl’s tongue not wag quite so
fast,’ remarks papa, patting the girl’s flushed little cheek,
‘ Not speak when a friend is attacked, and nobody says
a word in his favour ? No ; nobody ! ’
Here the two lips of the little mouth closed on each other ;
the whole little frame shook: the child fiimg a parting
look of defiance at Mr. Wolfe, and went out of the room,
just in time to close the door, and burst out crying on
the stair.
Mr. Wolfe looked very much discomfited. ‘ I am sure,
Aunt Lambert, I did not intend to hurt Hester’s feelings.’
*No, James,’ she said, very kindly. The young officer
used to can her Aunt Lambert in quite early days, and she
gave him her hand.
Mr, Lambert whistled his favourite tune of * Over the hills
A FAMILY COACH IS ORDERED
337
and far away’, with a drum accompaniment performed
by his fingers on the ’window. ‘ I say, you musn’t whistle
on Sunday, papa ! ’ cried the artless young gown-boy
from Grey Friars ; and then suggested that it was three
hours from breakfast, and he should like to finish Theo’s
cheese-cake.
" Oh, you greedy child ! ’ cries Theo. But here, hearing
a little exclamatory noise outside, she ran out of the room,
closing the door behind her. And we will not pursue her.
The noise was that sob which broke from Hester’s panting,
over-loaded heart ; and, though we cannot see, I am sure
the little maid flung herself on her sister’s neck, and wept
upon Theo’s kind bosom.
Hetty did not walk out in the afternoon when the family
took the air on the common, but had a headache and lay
on her bed, where her mother watched her. Charley had
discovered a comrade from Grey Friars : Mr. Wolfe of
course paired off with Miss Lowther : and Theo and her
father, taking their sober walk in the Sabbath sunshine,
found Madame Bernstein basking on a bench under a tree,
her niece and nephew in attendance. Harry ran up to
greet his dear friends : he was radiant with pleasure at
beholdii^ them — ^the elder ladies were most gracious to
the colonel smd his wife, who had so kindly welcomed their
Harry.
Ho’W’^ noble and handsome he looked ! Theo thought —
she called him by his Christian name, as if he were really
her brother. " ^^y did we not see you sooner to-day,
Harry ? ’ she asked.
^ I never thought you were here, Theo.’
^ But you might have seen us if you wished.’
‘ Where ? ’ asked Harry.
^ There, sir,’ she said, pointing to the church. And she
held her hand up as if in reproof ; but a sweet kindness
beamed in her face. Ah, friendly young reader, wandering
on the world and struggling with temptation, may you also
have one or two pure hearts to love and pray for you !
338
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAFFER XXXm
CONTAINS A SOLILOQUY BY HESTEB
iTiN Lambert’s first feel-
ing, upon learning the
little secret which his
younger daughter’s emo-
tion had revealed, was
to be angry with the
lad who had robbed his
child’s heart away from
him and her family. ‘ A
plague upon all scape-
graces, English or In-
dian!’ cried the colonel
to his wife. ‘ I wish this
one had broke his nose
against any doorpost but
ours.’
Perhaps we are to
cure him of being a
scapegrace, my dear,’
says Mrs. Lambert,
mildly interposing, ‘ and the fall at our door hath some-
thing providential in it. You laughed at me, Mr. Lambert,
when I said so before ; but if Heaven did not send the
young gentleman to us, who did ? And it may be for the
blessing and happiness of us all that he came, too.’
‘ It’s hard, Molly ! ’ groaned the colonel. ‘ We cherish
and fondle and rear ’em : we tend them through sickness
and health : we toil and w^e scheme : we hoard away
money in the stocking, and patch our own old coats : if
they’ve a headache we can’t sleep for thinking of their
ailment ; if they have a wish or fancy, we work day and
night to compass it, and ’tis darling daddy and dearest
pappy, and whose father is like ours ? and so forth. On
Tu^ay morning I am king of my house and family. On
Tuesday evening Prince Whippersnapper makes his appear-
ance, and my reign is over. # A whole life is forgotten and
A SOLILOQUY BY HESTER 3^
forsworn for a pair of blue eyes, a pair of lean shanks, and
a head of yellow hair.’
‘ ’Tis WTitten that we women should leave all to follow
our husband. I think om courtship was not very long,
dear Martin ! ’ said the matron, laying her hand on her
husband’s arm.
‘ ’Tis human nature, and what can you expect of the
jade ? ’ sighed the colonel.
*And I think I did my duty to my husband, though
I own I left my papa for lum,’ added Mrs. Lambert, softly.
‘ Excellent wench ! Perdition catch my soul ! but I do
love thee, Molly I ’ says the good colonel ; ‘ but then, mind
you, your father never did me ; and if ever I am to have
sons-in-law ’
‘ Ever, indeed I Of course my girls are to have husbands,
Mr. Lambert 1 ’ cries mamma.
‘ Weil, when they come, I’ll hate them, madam, as
your father did me, and quite right too, for taking his
treasure away from Mm.’
* Don’t be irreligious and unnatural, Martin Lambert !
I say you are unnatural, sir I ’ continues the matron.
STay, my dear, I have an old tooth in my left jaw, here ;
and ’tis natural that the tooth should come out. But
when the tooth-drawer pulls it, ’tis natural that I should
feel pain. Do you suppose, madam, that I don’t love
Hetty better than any tooth in my head ? ’ asks Mr.
Lambert. But no woman was ever averse to the idea
of her daughter getting a husband, however fathers revolt
against the invasion of the son-in-law. As for mothers
and grandmothers, those good folks are married over again
in the marriage of their young ones ; and their souls attire
themselves in the laces and muslins of twenty — ^forty years
ago ; the postilion’s wMte ribbons bloom again, and they
flutter into the post-chaise, and drive away. What woman,
however old, has not the bridal favours and raiment stowed
away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards
of her heart ?
‘ It will be a sad tMng, parting vuth her,’ continued
Mrs. Lambert, with a sigh.
‘ You have settled that point already, Molly,’ laughs the
colonel. ‘ Had I not best go out and order raisins and
corinths for the wedding-cake ? ’
' And then I shall have to leave the house in their charge
340
THE VmGINIAKS
when I go to her, you know, in Virginia. How many miles
is it to Virginia, Martin ? I should tliink it must be
thousands of miles.’
‘ A hundred and seventy-three thousand three hundred
and ninety-one and three-quarters, my dear,, by the nmr
way,’ answers Lambert, gravely ; ‘ that, through Prester
John’s country. By the other route, through Persia ’
‘ Oh, give me the one 'where there is the least of the sea,
and your horrid ships, which I can’t bear ! ’ cries the
colonel’s spouse. ‘ I hope Rachel Esmond and I shall
be better friends. She had a very high spirit when we
were girls at school.’
" bIA we not best go about the baby-linen, Mrs. Martin
Lambert ? ’ here interposed her wondering husband.
Now, Mrs. Lambert, I dare say, thought there was no
matter for wonderment at all, and had remarked some
very jaretty lace caps and bibs in Mrs. Bobbinit’s toy-shop.
And on that Sun<fe,y afternoon, when the discovery was
made, and while little Hetty was lying upon her pillow
with feverish cheeks, closed eyes, and a piteous face,
her mother looked at the child with the most perfect
ease of mind, and seemed to be rather pleased than other-
wise at Hetty’s woe.
The girl was not only unhappy, but enraged with herself
for having published her secret. Perhaps she had not
known it until the sudden emotion acquainted her with
her own state of mind ; and now the little maid chose to be
as much ashamed as if she had done a 'wrong, and been
discovered in it. She was indignant with her own weakness,
and broke into transports of wrath against herself. She
vowed she never would forgive herseff for submitting to
such a humiliation. So the young pard, wounded by the
hunter’s dart, chafes 'with ra^e in the forest, is angry with
the surprise of the rankling steel in her side, and snarls and
bites at her sister-cubs, and the leopardess, her spotted
mother.
Little Hetty tore and gnawed, and growled, so that I
should not like to have been her fraternal cub, or her
spotted dam or sire. ‘ What business has any young woman,’
she cried out, ' to indulge in any such nonsense ? Mamma,
I ought to be whipped, and sent to bed. I know perfectly
well that Mr. Warrington does not care a fig about me.
I dare say he likes French actresses and the commonest
A SOLILOQUY BY HESTER
S41
little milliner-girl in the toy-shop better than me. And
so he ought, and so they are better than me. Why, what
a fool I am to burst out crying like a ninny about nothing,
and because Mr. Wolfe said Harry played cards of a
Simday 1 I know he is not clever, like papa. I believe
he is stupid — I am certain he is stupid : but he is not so
stupid as I am. Why, of course, I can’t marry him. How
am I to go to America, and leave you and Theo ? Of course,
he likes somebody else, at America, or at Tunbridge, or at
Jericho, or somewhere. He is a prince in his own country,
and can’t think of marrying a poor half-pay officer’s
daughter, with twopence to her fortune. Used not you
to tell me how, when I was a baby, I cried and wanted
the moon ? I am a baby now, a most absurd, silly, little
baby — don’t talk to me, Mrs. Lambert, I am. Only there
is this to be said, he don’t know anything about it, and
I would rather cut my toi^e out than tell him.’
Dire were the threats with which Hetty menaced Theo,
in case her sister should betray her. As for the infantile
Charley, his mind hdng altogether set on cheese-cakes,
he had not remarked or been moved by Miss Hester’s
emotion ; and the parents and the kind sister of course all
promised not to reveal the little maid’s secret.
‘ I begin to think it had been best for us to stay at home,’
sighed Mrs. Lambert to her husband.
‘ Nay, my dear,’ replied the other. * Human nature will
be human nature ; surely Hetty’s mother told me herself
that she had the beginning of a liking for a certain young
curate before she fell over head and heels in love with
a certain young officer of Kingsley’s. And as for me,
my heart was wounded in a dozen places ere Miss Molly
Benson took entire possession of it. Our sons and daughters
must follow in the way of their parents before them,
I suppose. Why, but yesterday, you were scolding me
for grumblmg at Miss Het’s precocious fancies. To do the
child justice, she disguises her feelings entirely, and I defy
Mr. Warrington to know from her behaviour how she is
disposed towards him.’
‘ A daughter of mine and yours, Martin,’ cries the mother
Avith great dignity, ‘ is not going to fling herseM at a gentle-
man’s head 1 ’
‘ Neither herself nor the teacup, my dear,’ answers the
colonel. ‘ Little Miss Het treats Mr. Warrington like a
342
THE VIEGINIANS
vixen. He never comes to us, but she boxes his ears in one
fashion or t’other. I protest she is barely civil to him ;
but, knowing what is going on in the young hypocrite’s
mind, I am not going to be angry at her rudeness.’
‘ She hath no need to be rude at all, Martin ; and our
girl is good enough for any gentleman in England or
America. Why, if their ages suit, shouldn’t they marry
after all, sir ? ’
‘ Why, if he w-ants her, shouldn’t he ask her, my dear ?
I am sorry we came. I am for putting the horses into the
carriage, and turning their heads towards home again.’
But mamma fondly said, ‘ Depend on it, my dear, that
these matters are vusely ordained for us. Depend upon it,
Martin, it was not for nothing that Harry Warrington was
brought to our gate in that way ; and that he and our
childcen are thus brought together again. If that marriage
has been decreed in Heaven, a marriage it will be.’
‘ At what age, Molly, I wonder, do women begin and leave
off match-making ? If our little chit falls in love and falls
out again, she will not be the first of her sex, Mrs. Lambert.
I wish w’e were on our way home again, and, if I had my will,
would trot off this very night.’
‘ He has promised to drink his tea here to-night. You
would not take away our child’s pleasure, Martin ? ’ asked
the mother, softly.
In his fashion, the father w’as not less good-natured.
‘ You know', my dear,’ says Lambert, ‘ that if either of ’em
had a fancy to our ears, we would cut them off and serve
them in a fricassee.’
Mary Lambert laughed at the idea of her pretty little
delicate ears being so served. When her husband was
most tender-hearted, his habit was to be most grotesque.
When he pulled the pretty little delicate ear, behind
which the matron’s fine hair was combed back, wherein
twinkled a shining line or two of silver, I dare say he did not
hurt her much. I dare say she was thinking of the soft,
well-remembered times of her own modest youth and sweet
courtship. Hallowed remembrances of sacred times ! If
the sight of youthful love is pleasant to behold, how much
more charming the aspect of the affection that has survived
years, sorrows, faded beauty perhaps, and life’s doubts,
differences, trouble !
In r^ard of her promise to disguise her feelings for
A SOLILOQUY BY HESTER ^43
Mr. Warringion in that gentleman’s presence, Miss Hester
was better, or worse if you will, than her word. Harry
not only came to take tea with his friends, but invited
them for the next day to an entertainment at the Rooms,
to be given in their special honour.
‘ A dance, and given for us ! ’ cri^ Theo. ‘ Oh, Harry,
how delightful ; I wish we could begin this very minute I ’
‘ Why, for a savage Virginian, I declare, Harry Warring-
ton, thou art the most civilized young man possible ! ’
says the colonel. *My dear, shall w^e dance a minuet
together ? ’
‘ We have done such a thing before, Martin Lambert ! ’
says the soldier’s fond wife. Her husband hums a minuet
tune ; w’hips a plate from the tea-table, and makes a pre-
paratory bow and flourish with it as if it wore a hat, w'hilst
madam performs her best curtsy.
Only Hetty, of the party, persists in looking glum and
displeased. ‘ Why, child, have you not a word of thanks
to throw to Mi. Warrington ? ’ asks Theo of her sister.
‘ I never did care for dancing much,’ says Hetty. ‘ What
is the use of standing up opposite a stupid man, and dancing
down a room with him ? ’
Merd du compUmerd / ’ says Mr. Warrington.
* I d<m’t say that you are stupid — ^that is — ^that is,
I — I only meant oouh^ dances,’ says Hetty, biting her
lips, as she caught her sister’s eye. She remembered
she had said Harry w^as stupid, and Theo’s droll humorous
glance w^as her only reminder.
But with this Miss Hetty chose to be as angry as if it
had been quite a cruel rebuke. " I hate dancing — there —
I own it,’ she says, with a toss of her head.
‘ Nay, you used to like it well enough, child ! ’ interposes
her mother.
‘ That was when she w^as a child : don’t you see she is
grown up to be an old woman ? ’ remarks Hetty’s father.
‘ Or perhaps Miss Hester has got the gout ? ’
^ Fiddle ! ’ says Hester, snappishly, drubbing with her
little feet.
‘ What’s a dance without a fiddle ? ’ says imperturbed
papa.
Darkness has come over Harry Warrington’s face. ‘ I
come to try my best, and give them pleasure and a dance,’
he thinks, ‘ and the little thing tells me she hates dancing.
344
THE VIBGIOTANS
We don’t practise kindness, or acknowledge hospitality so
in our country. No — ^nor speak to our parents so, neither.’
I am afraid, in this particular, usages have changed in the
United States during the last hundred years, and that the
young folks there are considerably Hettified,
Not content vrith this, Miss Hester must proceed to make
such fun of all the company at the Wells, and especially
of Harry’s own immediate pursuits and companions, that
the honest lad was still further pained at her behaviour ;
and, when he saw Mis. Lambert alone, asked how or in
what he had again offended, that Hester was so angry
with him ? The kind matron felt more than ever well
disposed towards the boy, after her daughter’s conduct to
him. She would have liked to tell the secret which Hester
hid so fiercely. Theo, too, remonstrated with her sister
in private ; but Hester would not listen to the subject,
and was as angry in her bedroom, when the girk were alone,
as she had been in the parlour before her mother’s company.
‘ Suppose he hates me ? ’ says she. I expect he wiU.
I hate myself, I do, and scorn myself for being such an
idiot. How ought he to do otherwise than hate me ?
Didn’t I abuse him, call him goose, all sorts of names ?
And I know he is not clever all the time. I know I have
better wits than he has. It is only because he is tall,
and has blue eyes, and a pretty nose that I like him. What
an absurd fool a girl must be to like a man merely because
he has a blue nose and hooked eyes ! So I am a fool, and
I won’t have you say a word to the contrary, Theo ! ’
Now Theo thought that her little sister, far from being
a fool, was a wond^ of wonders, and that if any girl was
worthy of any prince in Christendom, Hetty was that
spinster. ‘ You are silly ^metimes, Hetty,’ says Theo,
* that is when you speak unkindly to people who mean you
well, as you did to Mr. Warrington at tea to-night. When
he proposed to us his party at the Assembly Rooms, and
nothing could be more gallant of him, why did you say you
didn’t care for music, or dancing, or tea ? You know you
love them all ! ’
‘ I said it merely to vex myself, Theo, and annoy myself,
and whip myself, as I deserve, child. And, besides, how
can you expect such an idiot as I am to say anjrfching but
idiofic things ? Do you know it quite pleased me to see
liim angry. I thought, ah ! now I have hurt his feelings !
A SOLILOQUY BY HESTER
345
Now he will say, Hetty Lambert is an odious little set-up,
sour-tempered vixen. And that will teach him, and you,
^d mamma, and papa, at any rate, that I am not going
to set my cap at Mi, Harry. No ; our papa is ten times
as good as he is. I vill stay by our papa, and if he asked
me to go to Virginia with him to-morrow, I wouldn’t, Theo.
My sister is worth all the Virginians that ever were made
since the world began.’
And here, I suppose, follow osculations between the sisters,
and mother’s knock comes to the door, who has overheard
their talk through the wainscot, and calls out, ‘ Children,
’tis time to go to sleep.’ Theo’s eyes close speedily, and
she is at rest ; but, oh, poor little Hetty ! Think of the
hours tolling one after another, and the child’s eyes wide
open, as she lies tossing and w^akeful with the anguish of
the new wound !
‘It is a judgement upon me,’ she says, ‘for having
thought and spoke scornfully of him. Only, why should
there be a judgement upon me ? I was only in fun. I
knew I liked him very much all the time : but I thought
Theo liked him too, and I would give up anything for my
darling Theo. If she had, no tortures should ever have
drawn a word from me — ^I would have got a rope ladder
to help her to run away with Harry, that I would, or fetched
the clergyman to marry them. And then I would have
retired alone, and alone, and alone, and taken care of papa
and mamma, and of the poor in the village, and have
read sermons, though I hate ’em, and have died without
telling a word — ^not a word — ^and I shall die soon, I know"
I shall.’ But when the dawn rises, the little maid is asleep
nestling by her sister, the stain of a tear or two upon her
flushed downy cheek.
Most of us play with edged tools at some period of our
lives, and cut ourselves accordingly. At first the cut hurts
and stings, and down drops the knife, and we cry out like
wounded little babies as w"e are. Some very, very few and
unlucky folks at the game cut their heads sheer off, or
stab themselves mortally, and perish outright, and there
is an end of them. But, — ^Heaven help us ! — many people
have fingered those ardentes sagittas w"hich Love sharpens
on his whetstone, and are stabbed, scarred, pricked, per-
forated, tattooed all over with the wounds, w’ho recover,
and live to be quite lively. Wir auch have tasted das
346
THE VIRGINIANS
ifMsohe Gluck; we also have gdd>i uvd — und so weiter.
Warble your death-song, sweet Thekia ! Perish off the
face of the earth, poor pulmonary victim, if so minded !
Had you survived to a later period of life, my dear, you
would have thought of a sentimental disappointment
without any reference to the undertaker. Let us trust
there is no present need of a sexton for Miss Hetty. But
meanwhile, the ve:^ instant she wakes, there, tearing at
her little heart, will that Care be, which has given her
a few hours’ respite, melted, no doubt, by her youth and
her tears.
CHAPTER XXXIV
IN WHICH MB. WABBOOTON TBEATS THE COMPANY WITH TEA AND
A BALL
ENEBOXJS with, his
very easily gotten
money, hospit-
able and cordial
to all, our young
Virginian, in his
capacity of man
of fashion, could
not do less than
treat his country
friends to an
entertainment at
the Assembly
Rooms, whither,
according to the
custom of the
day, he invited
almost all the
remaining company at the Wells. Card-tables were set
in one apartment, for all those who could not spend an
evening without the pastime then common to all European
society : ' a supper with champagne in some profusion and
bowls of negus was prepared in another chamber : the
large assembly room wus set apart for the dance, of which
TEA AND A BALL
347
enjoyment Harry Warrington’s gnests partook in our
ancestors’ homely fashion. I cannot fancy that the
amusement was especially lively. First, minuets were
called ; two or three of which were performed by as many
couple. The spinsters of the highest rank in the assembly
went out for the minuet, and my Lady Maria Esmond,
being an earl’s daughter, and the person of the highest
rank present (with the exception of Lady Augusta Crutchley ,
who -was lame), Mr. Warrington danced the first minuet
with his cousin, acquitting himself to the satisfaction of the
whole room, and performing much more elegantly than
Mr. Wolfe, who stood up with Miss Loviiher. Having
completed the dance with Lady Maria, Mr. Warrington
begged Miss Theo to do him the honour of walking the next
minuet, and accordingly Miss Theo, blushing and looking
very happy, went through her exercise to the great delight
of her parents and the rage of Miss Humpleby, Sir John
Humpleby’s daughter, of Liphook, who expect^, at least,
to have stood up next after my Lady Maria. Then, after
the minuets, came country dances, the music being per-
formed by a harp, fiddle, and flageolet ; perched in a little
balcony, and thrumming through the evening rather feeble
aijd melancholy tunes. Take up an old book of music,
and play a few of those tunes now, and one wonders how
people at any time oouM have found the airs otherwise
than melancholy. And yet tiiey loved and frisked and
laughed and courted to that sad accompaniment. There
is scarce one of the airs that has not an amari a
tang of sadness. Perhaps it is because they are old and
defunct, and their plaintive echoes call out to us from
the limbo of the past, whither they have been consigned
for this century. Perhaps they were gay w^hen they were
alive ; and our descendants w^hen they hear — w^ell, never
mind names — when they hear the w’orks of certain rmestri
now^ popular, will say : Bon Dieu^ is this the music w^hich
amused our forefathers ?
Mr. Warrington had the honour of a duchess’s company
at his tea-drinking — Colonel Lambert’s and Mr. Prior’s
heroine, the Duchess of Queensberry. And though the
duchess carefully turned her back upon a countess wiio
w^as present, laughed loudly, glanced at the latter over
her shoulder, and pointed at her with her fan, yet almost
all the company pushed, and bowled, and cringed, and
348
THE VIRGINIANS
smiled, and backed before this countess, scarcely taking
any notice of her grace of Queensberry and her jokes, and
her fan, and her airs. Now this countess was no other
than the Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden, the lady
whom his Majesty George the Second, of Great Britain,
France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, delighted
to honour. She had met Harry Warrington in the walks
that morning, and had been mighty gracious to the young
Virginian. She had told him they would have a game at
cards that night ; and purblind old Colonel Blinkinsop,
who fancied the invitation had been addressed to him, had
made the profoundest of bows. ‘ Pooh ! pooh I ’ said the
Countess of England and Hanover, ‘ I don’t mean you.
I mean the young Firshinian I ’ And everybody con-
gratulated the youth on his good fortune. At night, all
the world, in order to show their loyalty, doubtless, thronged
round my Lady Yarmouth ; my Lord Bamborough was
eager to make her partie at quadrille ; my Lady Blanche
Pendragon, that model of virtue ; Sir Lancelot Quintain,
that pattern of knighthood and valour ; Mr. Dean of
Ealing, that exemplary divine and preacher ; numerous
gentlemen, noblemen, generals, colonels, matrons, and
spinsters of the highest rank, were on the 'watch for a smile
from her, or eager to jump up and join her card-table.
Lady Maria waited upon her with meek respect, and
Madame de Bernstein treated the Hanoverian lady with
profound gravity and courtesy.
Harry’s bow had been no lower than hospitality required ;
but, such as it was. Miss Hester chose to be indignant with
it. She scarce spoke a word to her partner during their
dance together ; and when he took her to the supper-room
for refreshment she was little more communicative. To
enter that room they had to pass by Madame Walmoden’s
card-table, who good-naturedly call^ out to her host as he
was passing, and asked him H his ‘ breddy liddle bardner
liked tanzing ? ’
‘ I thank your ladyship, I don’t like tanzing, and I don’t
like cards,’ says Miss Hester, tossing up her head ; and,
dropping a curtsy like a ‘ cheese she strutted away from
the countess’s table.
Mr. Warrington was very much offended. Sarcasm from
the young to the old pained him : flippant behaviour
towards himself hurt him. Courteous in his simple way
TEA AND A BALL 349
to all persons whom he met, he expected a like politeness
from them. Hetty perfectly well knew- what offence she
was giving ; could mark the displeasure reddening on her
partner’s honest face, vith a side-long glance of her eye ;
nevertheless, she tried to wear her most ingenuous smile ;
and, as she came up to the sideboard where the refreshments
w^ere set, artlessly said : —
^ What a horrid, vulgar old woman that is ; don’t you
think so ? ’
‘ What woman ? ’ asked the young man.
' That German woman — ^my Lady Yarmouth — to whom
all the men are bowing and cringing.’
‘ Her ladyship has been very kind to me,’ says Harry,
grimly. ‘ Won’t you have some of this custard ? ’
‘ And you have been bowing to her, too ! You look as if
your negus was not nice,’ harmlessly continues Miss Hetty.
* It is not very good negus,’ says Harry, with a gulp.
‘ And the custard is b^ too ! I declare ’tis made with
bad eggs ! ’ cries Miss Lambert.
* I wish, Hester, that the entertainment and the company
had been better to your liking,’ says poor Harry.
‘ ’Tis very unfortunate ; but I dare say you could not
help it,’ cries the young woman, tossing her little curly
head.
Mr. Warrington groaned in spirit, perhaps in body, and
clenched his fists and his teeth. The little torturer artlessly
continued, ‘ You seem disturbed : shall we go to my
mamma ? ’
‘ Yes, let us go to your mamma,’ cries Mr. Warrington,
with glaring eyes and a ‘ Curse you, why are you alw'ays
standing in the way ? ’ to an unlucky waiter.
‘ La ! Is that the way you speak in Virginia ? ’ asks
Miss Pertness.
‘ We are rough there sometimes, madam, and can’t help
being disturbed,’ he says slowiy, and with a quiver in his
w^hole frame, looking down upon her with fire flashing out
of his eyes. Hetty saw nothing distinctly afterwards, and
until she came to her mother. Never had she seen Harry
look so handsome or so noble.
^ You look pale, child ! ’ cries mamma, anxious like all
'pavidae matres,
‘ ’Tis the cold — ^no, I mean the heat. Thank you,
Mr. Warrington.’ And she makes him a faint curtsy, as
350
THE VIRGINIANS
Harry bows a tremendous bow, and walks elsewhere amongst
his guests. He hardly knows what is happening at first,
so angry is he.
He is aroused by another altercation between his aunt
and the Duchess of Queensberry. Wlien the royal favourite
passed the duchess, her grace gave her ladyship an aviul
stare out of eyes that were not so bright now as they had
been in the young days when they ‘ set the world on fire ’ ;
turned round with an affected laugh to her neighbour,
and shot at the jolly Hanoverian lady a ceaseless fire of
giggles and sneers. The countess pursued her game at cards,
not knowing, or not choosing perhaps to know, how her
enemy was jibing at her. There had been a feud of many
years’ date between their graces of Queensberry and the
family on the throne.
‘ How you all bow down to the idol ! Don’t teU me !
You are as bad as the rest, my good Madame Bernstein I ’
the duchess says. *Ah, what a true Christian country
this is ! and how your dear first husband, the bishop,
would have liked to see such a sight ! ’
* Forgive me, if I fail quite to understand your grace.’
* Wb are both of us growing old, my good Bernstein, or,
perhaps, we won’t understand when w’e don’t choose to
understand. That is the way with us women, my good
young Iroquois,’
‘ Your grace remarked, that it was a Christian country,’
said Madame de Bernstein, ‘ and I failed to perceive the
point of the remark.’
* Indeed, my good creature, there is very little point in it !
I meant we were such good Christians, b^ause we were so
forgiving. Don’t you remember reading when you were
young, or your husband the bishop reading when he was
in the pulpit, how, when a woman amongst the Jews was
caught doing wrong, the Pharisees were for stoning her
out of hand ? Far from stoning such a woman now, look,
how fond we are of her ! Any man in this room would
go round it on his knees if yonder woman bade him. Yes,
Madame Walmod^, you may look up from your cards with
your great painted face, and frown with your great painted
eyebrows at me. You know I am talking about you ; and
I intend to go on talking about you, too. I say any man
here would go round the room on his knees, if you bade
him!’
TEA AND A BALL 351
* I think, madam, I know two or three who wouldn’t ! ’
says Mr. Warrington, with some spirit.
‘ Quick, let me hug them to my heart of hearts ! ’ cries
the old duchess. ‘ Which are they ? Bring ’em to me, my
dear Iroquois ! Let us have a game of four — of honest men
and women : that is to say, if we can find a couple more
partners, Mr. Warrington 1 ’
‘ Here are we three,’ says the Baroness Bernstein, with
a forced laugh ; ‘ let us play a dummy.’
‘ Pray, madam, where is the third ? ’ asks the old duchess,
looking round.
‘ Mg^m ! ’ cries out the other elderly lady, ‘ I leave
your grace to boast of your honesty, w’hieh I have no
doubt is spotless : but I will thank you not to doubt mine
before my own relatives and children I ’
^ See how she fires up at a word 1 I am sure, my dear
creature, you are quite as honest as most of the company,’
says the duchess.
‘Which may not be good enough for her grace the
Duchess of Queensberry and Dover, who, to be sure, might
have stayed away in such a case, but it is the b^t my
nephew could get, madam, and his best he has given you.
You look astonished, Harry, my dear — and well you may.
H© fe used to our ways, madam.’
‘ Madam, he has found am. aunt who can teach him our
ways, and a great deal more I ’ cries the duchess, rapping
her fan.
‘ She wiU teach him to try and make all his guests wel-
come, old or young, rich or poor. That is the Virginian
way, isn’t it, Harry ? She w^iU tell him, w’hen Catherine
Hyde is angry with his old aunt, that they were friends
as girls, and ought not to quarrel now they are old women.
And she wiU not be wrong, wiU she, duchess ? ’ And
herewith the one dowager made a superb curtsy to the other,
and the battle just impending between them passed away.
‘ Egad, it w^as like Byng and Galissoni^re ! ’ cried Chap-
lain Sampson, as Harry talked over the night’s transactions
with his tutor next morning. ‘No power on earth, I
thought, could have prevented those two from going
into action 1 ’
‘ Seventy-fours at least — ^both of ’em ! ’ laughs Harry.
‘But the baroness declined the battle, and sailed out
of fire with inimitable skiU.’
352
THE Yimimms
^ Why shoxild she be afraid ? I have heard you say
my aunt is as vitty as any woman alive, and need fear the
tongue of no dowager in England,’
^ Hem ! Perhaps she had good reasons for being peace-
able ! ’ Sampson knew very weU what they were, and
that poor Bernstein’s reputation was so hopelessly flawed
and cracked, that any sarcasms levelled at Madame Wal-
moden were equally applicable to her,
‘ Sir,’ cried Harry, in great amazement, ‘ you don’t
mean to say there is anything against the character of
my aunt, the Baroness de Bernstein ! ’
The chaplain looked at the young Virginian with such
an air of utter wonderment, that the latter saw there
must be some history ^^dnst his aunt, and some charge
which Sampson did not choose to reveal. ‘ Great Heavens ! ’
Harry groaned out, ‘are there two then in the family,
who are
‘ Which two ? ’ asked the chaplain.
But here Harry stopped, blushing very red. He remem-
bered, and we shall presently have to state, whence he had
got his information r^rding the other family culprit,
and bit his lip, and was silent.
* Bygcmes axe always unpleasant things, Mr. Warrington,’
said the chaplain ; * and we had best hold our peace
regarding them. No man or woman can live long in this
wicked w’orld of ours, without somescandal attaching to them,
and I fear our excellent baroness has been no more fortunate
than her neighbours. We c^umot escape calumny, my
dear young friend 1 You have had sad proof enough of that
in your brief stay amongst us. But we can have clear
consciences, and that is the main point 1 ’ And herewith
the chaplain threw his handsome eyes upward, and tried
to look as if conscience was as white as the ceiling.
‘ Has there been anything very wrong then, about my
Aunt Bernstein ? ’ continued Harry, remembering how at
home his mother had never spoken of the baroness.
‘ O swnda aim^icitas / ’ the chaplain muttered to him-
self. ‘ Stories, my dear sir, much older than your time or
mine. Stories such as were told about everybody, de me,
de te ; you know with what degree of truth in your own
case.’
‘ Confound the villain ! I should like to hear any
scoundrel say a word against the dear old lady,’ cries the
TEA AND A BALL
353
young gentleman. ‘ Why, this world, parson, is full of
lies and scandal ! ’
‘ And you are just beginning to find it out, my dear
sir,’ cries the clergyman, with his most beatified air.
* W^ose character has not been attacked ? My lord’s,
yours, mine, — every one’s. We must bear as w’ell as we
can, and pardon to the utmost of our power.’
^ You may. It’s your cloth, you know' ; but, by George,
1 w'on’t ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington, and again goes down
the fist with a thump on the table. ‘ Let any fellow' say
a word in my hearing against that dear old creature, and
I’ll pull his nose, as sure as my name is Henry Esmond.
How do you do. Colonel Lambert? You find us late
again, sir. Me and his reverence kept it up pretty late
with some of the young fellow's, after the ladies went away.
I hope the dear ladies are w’ell, sir ? ’ and here Harry rose,
greeting his friend the colonel very kindly, who had come
k) pay him a morning visit, and had entered the room
followed by Mr. Gumbo (the latter preferred walking
very leisurely about all the affairs of life) just as Harry
— suiting the action to the word — ^was tweaking the nose
of Calumny.
ladies are purely. Whose nose were you pulling
whm I qame in, Mr. Warrington ? ’ says the colonel,
laughing.
‘ Isn’t it a shame, sir ? The parson, here, was telling
me, that there are viUains here who attack the character
of my aunt, the Baroness of Bernstein ! ’
‘ You don’t mean to say so I ’ cries Mr. Lambert.
‘ I tell Mr. Harry that everybody is calumniated ! ’ says
the chaplain, with a clerical intonation ; but, at the same
time, he looks at Colonel Lambert and winks, as much as
to say, * He knows nothing — ^keep him in the dark.’
The colonel took the hint. ‘ Yes,’ says he, ‘ the jaw's
of slander are for ever wagging. Witness that story
about the dancing-girl, that w'e all believed against you,
Harry Warrington.’
‘ ^5^at, all, sir ? ’
‘No, not all. One didn’t — ^Hetty didn’t. You should
have heard her standing up for you, Harry, t’other day,
when somebody — ^a little bird — brought us ariother story
about you ; about a game of cards on Sunday morning,
when you and a friend of yours might have been better
VIEGINIANS K
354 -
THE VIRGINIANS
employed.’ And here there was a look of mingled humour
and reproof at the clergyman.
‘ Faith, I own it, sir ! ’ says the chaplain. ^ It was
mm cvlfa, mea maxima — ^no, mea minima ctdpa, only
the rehearsal of an old game at piquet, which we had been
talking over.’
‘ And did Miss Hester stand up for me ? ’ says Harry.
‘ Miss Hester did. But why that wondering look ? ’
asks the colonel.
‘ She scolded me last night like — like anything,’ says
downright Harry. ‘ I never heard a young girl go on so.
She made fun of everybody — hit about at young and old —
so that I couldn’t help telling her, sir, that in our country,
leastways in Virginia (they say the Yankees are very pert),
young people don’t speak of their elders so. And, do you
know, sir, we had a sort of a quarrel, and I’m very glad
you’ve told me she spoke kindly of me,’ says Harry, shaking
his friend’s hand, a ready boyish emotion glowing in his
cheeks and in his eyes.
‘ You won’t come to much hurt if you find no worse
enemy than H^ter, Mr. Warrington,’ said the girl’s father,
gravely, looking not without a deep thrill of interest at
the flushed face and moist eyes of his young friend. ‘ Is
he fond of her ? ’ thought the colonel. ‘ And how fond ?
’Tis evident he knows nothing, and Miss Het has been
performing some of her tricks. He is a fine, honest lad,
and God bless him.’ And Colonel Lambert looked towards
Harry with that manly, friendly kindness which our lucky
young Virginian was not unaccustomed to inspire, for he
was comely to look at, prone to blush, to kindle, nay,
to melt, at a kind story. His laughter -was cheery to
hear : his eyes shone confidently : his voice spoke truth.
‘ And the young lady of the minuet ? She distinguished
herself to perfection : the whole room admired,’ asked
the courtly chaplain. ^ I trust Miss — ^Miss ’
‘Miss Theodosia is perfectly well, and ready to dance
at this minute with your reverence,’ says her father. ‘ Or
stay, chaplain, perhaps you only dance on Sunday ? ’
The colonel then tum^ to HArry again. ‘ You paid your
court very neatly to the great lady, Mr. Flatterer. My
Lady Yarmouth has been trumpeting your praises at the
Pump Room. She says she has got a le^el boy in Hanover
Jat is werylike you, and you are a sharming young mans.’
TEA AND A BALL
357
‘ If her ladyship were a queen, people could scarcely
be more respectful to her,’ says the chaplain.
‘ Let us call her a vice-queen, parson,’ says the colonel,
with a twinkle of his eye.
‘ Her Majesty pocketed forty of my guineas at quadrille,’
cries Mr. Warrington, with a laugh.
^ She w’ill play you on the same terms another day.
The countess is fond of play, and she wins from most people,’
said the colonel, dryly. ‘ Why don’t you bet her ladyship
five thousand on a bishopric, parson ? I have heard of
a clergyman who made such a bet, and who lost it, and
wLo paid it, and w’ho got the bishopric.’
" Ah ! who will lend me the five thousand ? Will you,
sir ? ’ asked the chaplain.
‘ No, sir. I w^on’t give her five thousand to be made com-
mander-in-chief or Pope of Rome,’ says the colonel, stoutly.
‘ I shall fling no stones at the woman ; but I shall bow'
no knee to her, as I see a pack of rascals do. No offence —
I don’t mean you. And I don’t mean Harry Warrington,
who was quite right to be civil to her, and to lose his
money with good humour. Harry, I am come to bid thee
farewell, my boy. We have had our pleasuring — my
money is run out, and we must jog back to Oakhurst.
Will you ever come and see the old place again ? ’
' Now, sir, now I I’ll ride ba»ck with you ! ’ cries Harry,
eagerly.
‘Why — ^no — ^not now,’ says the colonel in a hurried
manner. ‘ We haven’t got room — ^that is, we’re — we’re
expecting some friends.’ [‘ The Lord forgive me for the lie ! ’
he mutters.] ‘But — ^but you’ll come to us when — w^hen
Tom’s at home — ^yes, when Tom’s at home. That will
be famous fun — ^and I’d have you to know, sir, that my
wife and I love you sincerely, sir — ^and so do the girls,
how’ever much they scold you. And if you ever are in
a scrape — and such things have happened, Mr. Chaplain ! —
you will please to count upon me. Mind that, sir ! ’
And the colonel was for taking leave of Harry then and
there, on the spot, but the young man followed him down
the stairs, and insisted upon saying good-bye to his dear
ladies.
Instead, however, of proceeding immediately to Mr.
Lambert’s lodging, the two gentlemen took the direction
of the common, w^here, looking from Harry’s windows,
358
THE VIRGINIANS
Mr. Sampson saw the pair in earnest conversation. First,
Lambert smiled and looked roguish. Then, presently,
at a further stage Jof the talk, he flung up both his hands
and performed other gestures indicating surprise and
agitation.
‘ The boy is teUing him,’ thought the chaplain. When
Mr. Warrington came back in an hour, he found his reverence
deep in the composition of a sermon. Harry’s face was
grave and melancholy ; he flung down his hat, buried him-
self in a great chair, and then came from his lips something
like an execration.
‘ The young ladies are going and our heart is affected ? ’
said the chaplain, looking up from his manuscript.
‘ Heart ! ’ sneered Harry.
‘ Which of the young ladies is the conqueror, sir ? I
thought the youngest’s eyes followed you about at your ball.’
^ Confound the little termagant 1 ’ broke out Harry,
‘ what does she mean by being so pert to me ? She treats
me as if I was a fool \ ’
‘ And no man is, sir, with a w’oman ! ’ said the scribe
of the sermon.
‘ Ain’t they, chaplain ? ’ And Harry growled out more
naughty words expressive of inw^ard disquiet.
‘ By the way, have you heard anything of your lost
property ? ’ asked the chaplain, presently looking up
from his pages.
Harry said, ‘ No ! ’ with another word, which I would
not print for the world.
‘I b^in to suspect, sir, that there was more money
than you like to own in that book. I wish I could find
some.’
‘ There were notes in it,’ said Harry, very gloomily, " and
— ^and papers that I am very sorry to lose. What the
deuce has come of it ? I had it when we dined together.’
‘ I saw you put it in your pocket ! ’ cried the chaplain.
‘ I saw you take it out and pay at the toy-shop a bill for
a gold thimble and workbox for one of your young ladies.
Of course you have asked there, sir ? ’
"Of course I have,’ says Mr. Warrington, plunged in
melancholy.
" Gumbo put you to bed, at least, if I remember right.
I was so cut myself that I scarce remember anything.
Can you trust those black fellows, sir ? ’
TEA AND A BALL
‘ I can trust him with my head. With my head ? ’ groaned
out Mr. Warrington, bitterly. ‘ I can’t trust myself with it.’
‘ Oh that a man should put an enemy into his moutli
to steal away his brains I ’
‘ You may well call it an enemy, chaplain. Hang it,
I have a great mind to make a vow- never to drink another
drop I A fellow^ says anything w^hen he is in drink.’
The chaplain laughed. ‘ You, sir,’ he said, ‘ are close
enough ! ’ And the truth was, that, for the last few days,
no amount of wine w^ould unseal Mr. Warrington’s lips,
when the artless Sampson by chance touched on the
subject of his patron’s loss.
‘ And so the little country nymphs are gone, or going,
sir ? ’ asked the chaplain. ‘ They were nice, fresh little
things ; but I think the mother was the finest woman of
the three. I declare, a w’oman at five-and-thirty or so
is at her prime. What do you say, sir ? ’
Mr. Warrington looked for a moment askance at the
clergyman. ‘ Confound all women, I say ! ’ muttered the
young misogynist. For which sentiment every well-
conditioned person will surely rebuke him.
CHAPTER XXXV
ENTAKGLBIfENTS
UE good colonel had, no doubt,
taken counsel with his good
wife, and they had deter-
mined to remove their little
Hetty as speedily as possible
out of the reach of the
charmer. In complaints such
as that under which the poor
little maiden w’as supposed to
be suffering, the remedy of
absence and distance often
acts effectually with men ;
but I believe women are not
so easily cured by the alibi
treatment. Some of them
will go away ever so far, and for ever so long, and the
360
THE VERGmiANS
obstinate disea^ hangs by them, spite of distance or climate.
You may whip, abuse, torture, insult them, and still the
little deluded creatures will persist in their Melity. Nay,
if I may speak, after profound and extensive study and
observation, there are few better ways of securing the
faithfulness and admiration of the beautiful partners of
our existence than a little judicious ill-treatment, a brisk
dose of occasional violence as an alterative, and, for general
and wholesome diet, a cooling but pretty constB.nt neglect.
At sparing intervals, administer small quantities of love
and kindness ; but not every day, or too often, as this
medicine, much taken, loses its effect. Those dear
creatures who are the most indifferent to their husbands,
are those who are cloyed by too much surfeiting of the
sugarplums and loUypops of Love. I have known a young
being, with every wish gratified, yawn in her adoring
husband’s face, and prefer the conversation and
soins of the merest booby and idiot ; whilst, on the other
hand, I have seen Ghloe, — ^at whom Strephon has flung
his bootjack in the morning, or whom he has cursed before
the servants at dinner, — come creeping and fondling to
his knee at tea-time, when he is comfortable after his little
nap and his good wine ; and pat his head and play him his
favourite tunes ; and, when old John, the butler, or old
Mary, the maid, comes in with the bed-candles, look round
proudly, as much as to say. Now, John, look how good
my dearest Henry is ! Make your game, gentlemen,
then ! There is the coaxing, fondling, Coring line, when
you are henpecked, and Louisa is indifferent, and bored
out of her existence. There is the manly, selfish, effectual
system, where she answers to the whistle ; and comes
in at ‘ Down Charge ’ ; and knows her master ; and frisks
and fawns about him ; and nuzzles at his knees ; and
‘licks the hand that’s raised’ — ^that’s raised to do her
good, as {I quote from memory) Mr. Pope finely observes.
What used the late lamented O’Connell to say, over whom
a grateful country has raised such a magnificent testi-
monial ? ‘ Hereditary bondsmen,’ he used to remark,
‘ kimw ye not, who w’ould be free, themselves must strike
Ike blow ? ’ Of course you must, in political as in domestic
circles. So up with your cudgels, my enslaved, injured
boys !
Women will be pleased with these remarks, because they
ENTANGLEMENTS
m
have such a taste for humour and understand irony : and
I should not be surprised if young Grubstreet, uho corre-
sponds with three penny papers and describes the persons
and conversation of gentlemen whom he meets at his
‘ clubs will say, ‘ I told you so ! He advocates the thrash-
ing of women ! He has no nobility of soul ! He has no
heart ! ’ Nor have I, my eminent young Grubstreet ! any
more than you have ears. Dear ladies ! I assure you
I am only joking in the above remarks, — I do not advocate
the thrashing of your sex at all, — and, as you can’t under-
stand the commonest bit of fun, beg leave flatly to tell
you, that I consider your sex a hundred times more loving
and faithful than ours.
So, w’hat is the use of Hetty’s parents taking her home,
if the little maid intends to be just as fond of Harry absent
as of Harry present ? Why not let her see him before
Ball and Dobbin are put to, and say ‘ Good-bye, Harry !
I wras very wilful and fractious last night, and you were
very kind : but good-bye, Harry ! ’ She will show no
special emotion : she is so ashamed of her secret, that
she will not betray it. Harry is too much preoccupied
to discover it for himself. He does not know what grief
is lying behind Hetty’s glances, or hidden under the artifice
of her innocent young smiles. He has, perhaps, a care of
his own. He will part from her calmly, and fancy she is
happy to get back to her music and her poultry and her
flower-garden.
He did not even ride part of the way homewards by the
side of his friend’s carriage. He had some other party
arranged for that afternoon, and \yhen he returned thence,
the good Lamberts w’ere gone from Tunbridge Wells. There
were their windows open, and the card in one of them
signifying that the apartments were once more to let.
A little passing sorrow at the blank aspect of the rooms
lately eidivened by countenances so frank and friendly,
may have crossed the young gentleman’s mind ; but
he dines at the ‘White Horse’ at four o’clock, and eats his
dinner and calls fiercely for his bottle. Poor little Hester
Trill choke over her tea about the same hour, when the
Lamberts arrive to sleep at the house of their friends at
Westerham. The young roses will be wan in her cheeks
in the morning, and there will be black circles round her
eyes. It was the thunder : the night was hot : she could
N 3
THE VIBGINIAUJS
not sleep ; she will be better when she gets home again
the next day. And home they come. There is the gate
where he fell. There is the bed he lay in, the chair in which
he used to sit — what ages seem to have passed ! What
a gulf between to-day and yesterday ! Who is that
little child calling her chickens, or w^atering her roses
yonder ? Are she and that girl the same Hester Lambert ?
Why, she is ever so much older than Theo now — Theo,
who has always been so composed, and so clever, and so
old for her age. But in a night or two Hester has lived —
oh, long, long years 1 So have many besides : and poppy
and mandragora will never medicine them to the sweet
sleep they tasted yesterday.
Maria Esmond saw the Lambert cavalcade drive aw^ay,
and felt a grim relief. She looks with hot eyes at Harry
when he comes in to his aunt*s card-tables, flushed with
Barbeau’s good wine. He laughs, rattles, in reply to his
aunt, who asks him w’hich of the girls is his sweetheart ?
He gaily says, he loves them both like sisters. He has
never seen a better gentleman, nor better people, than the
Lamberts. Why is Lambert not a general ? He has been
a most distinguished officer : his royal highness the duke
is very f<md of him. Madame Bernstein says, that Harry
must make interest with Lady Yarmouth for his protege.
* EUe ravvole de fous, cher bedid anche 1 ’ says Madame
Bernstein, mimicking the countess’s German accent. The
baroness is delighted wdth her boy’s success. * You carry
off the hearts of all the old women, doesn’t he, Maria ? ’
she says with a sneer at her niece, who quivers under the
stab.
‘ You were quite right, my dear, not to perceive that she
cheated at cards, and you play like a grand seigneur,’
continues Madame de Bernstein.
* Did she cheat ? ’ cries Harry, astonished. ‘ I am sure,
ma’am, I saw no unfair play.’
‘ No more did I, my dear, but I am sure she cheated.
Bah ! every woman cheats. I and Maria included, when
we can get a chance. But, when you play with the Wal-
moden, you don’t do WTong to lose in moderation : and
many men cheat in that way. Cultivate her. She has
taken a fancy to your hmux yeux. Why should your
excellency not be Governor of Virginia, sir ? You must
go and pay your respects to the duke and his Majesty at
ENTANGLEMENTS
363
Kensington. The Conntess of Yarmouth will be your
best friend at Court.’
^ Wby should you not introduce me, aunt ? ’ asked
Harry.
The old lady’s rouged cheek grew^ a little redder. ‘ I am
not in favour at Kensington,’ she said. ‘ I may have been
once ; and there are no faces so unwelcome to kings as
those they wish to forget. Ail of us w’ant to forget some-
thing or somebody. I dare say our ingenu here would
like to wipe a sum or two off the slate. Wouldst thou
not, Harry ? ’
Harry turned red, too, and so did Maria, and his aunt
laughed one of those wicked laughs which are not altogether
pleasant to hear. What meant those guilty signals on
the cheeks of her nephew’ and niece V What account
was scored upon the memory of either, which they w’ere
desirous to efface ? I fear Madame Bernstein w’as right,
and that most folks have some ugly reckonings wTitten up
on their consciences, which we were glad to 1^ quit of.
Had Maria known one of the causes of Harry’s disquiet,
that middle-aged spinster would have been more unquiet
stilL For some days he had missed a pocket-book. He
had remembered it in his possession on that day when he
drank so much claret at the ‘ White Horse and Gumbo
carried him to bed. He sought for it in the morning,
but none of his servants had seen it. He had inquired for
it at the ‘White Horse’, but there were no traces of it. He
could not cry the book, and could only make very cautious
inquiries respecting it. He must not have it known that
the book was lost. A pretty condition of mind Lady Maria
Esmond would be in, if she knew that the outpourings
of her heart w^ere in the hands of the public 1 The letters
contained all sorts of disclosures : a hundred family
secrets were narrated by the artless correspondent ; there
w’as ever so much satire and abuse of persons with whom
she and Mr. Warrington came in contact. There were
expostulations about his attentions to other ladies. There
was scorn, scandal, jokes, appeals, protests of eternal
fidelity ; the usual farrago, dear madam, which you may
remember you WTote to your Edward, when you w^ere
engaged to him, and before you became Mrs. Jones. Would
you hke those letters to be read by any one else ? Do you
recollect what you said about the Miss Browns in two or
m
THE VIRGINIANS
tkree of those letters, and the unfavourable opinion you
expressed of Mrs. Thompson’s character ? Bo you happen
to recall the words which you used regarding Jones himself,
whom you subsequently married ? (for in consequence of
disputes about the settlements your engagement with
Edward was broken off) and would you like Mr. J. to
see those remarks ? You know you wouldn’t. Then be
pleased to withdraw that imputation w^hich you have
already cast in your mind upon Lady Maria Esmond.
No doubt her letters w^ere very foolish, as most love-letters
are, but it does not follow” that there w”as anything wTong
in them. They are foolish when wTitten by young folks
to one another, and how much more foolish when written
by an old man to a young lass, or by an old lass to a young
! No wonder Lady Maria should not like her letters
to be read. Why, the very spelling — but that didn’t
matter m much in her ladyship’s days, and people are
just as foolish now, though they spell better. No, it is
not the spelling w'hich matters so much ; it is the wrriting
at all. I for one, and for the future, am determined never
to speak or write my mind out regarding anything or any-
body. I intend to say of every woman that she is chaste
and handsome ; of every man that he is handsome, clever,
and rich ; of every book that it is delightfully interesting ;
of Snobmore’s manners that they are gentlemanlike ; of
Screw”by’s dinners that they are luxurious ; of Jawkins’s
conversation that it is lively and amusing ; of Xantippe,
that she has a sweet temper ; of Jezebel, that her colour
is natural ; of Bluebeard, that he really was most indulgent
to his wives, and that very likely they died of bronchitis.
What ? a word against the spotless Messalina ? What
an unfavourable view of human nature ? What ? King
Cheops was not a perfect monarch ? Oh, you railer at
royalty and slanderer of all that is noble and good ! When
this book is concluded, I shall change the jaundiced livery
which my books have worn since I began to lisp in numbers,
have rose-coloured coats for them with cherubs on the
cover, and all the characters within shall be perfect angels.
Meanw'hile we are in a society of men and women, from
whose shoulders no sort of wings have sprouted as yet,
and who, without any manner of doubt, have their little
failings. There is Madame Bernstein : she has fallen
asleep after dinner, and eating and drinking too much, —
ENTANGLEMENTS
305
those are her ladyship’s little failings. Mr. Harry Warring-
ton has gone to play a match at billiards with Count
Caramboli : I suspect idleness is his failing. That is
what Mr. Chaplain Sampson remarks to Lady Maria,
as they are talking together in a low tone, so as not to
interrupt Aunt Bernstein’s doze in the neighbouring room.
‘A gentleman of Mr. Warrington’s means can afford
to be idle,’ says Lady Maria. ‘ Why, sure, you love
cards and billiards yourself, my good Mr. Sampson ? ’
‘ I don’t say, madam, my practice is good, only my
doctrine is sound,’ says Mr. Chaplain vith a sigh. ^ This
young gentleman should have some employment. He
should appear at Court, and enter the service of his country,
as befits a man of his station. He should settle down,
and choose a woman of a suitable rank as his wife.’ Samp-
son looks in her ladyship’s face as he speaks,
‘ Indeed, my cousin is wasting his time,’ says Lady Maria,
blushing slightly.
‘ Mr. Warrington might see his relatives of his father’s
family,’ suggests Mr. Chaplain,
'Suffolk country boobies drinking beer and hallooing
after foxes 1 I don’t see anything to be gained by his
frequenting them, Mr. Sampson ! ’
‘ They are of an ancient family, of which the chief has
been knight of the shire these himdred years,’ says the chap-
lain. ' I have heard Sir Miles hath a daughter of 1^.
Harry’s age — and a beauty, too.’
‘ I know nothing, sir, about Sir Miles Warrington, and
his daughters, and his beauties ! ’ cries Maria, in a fluster.
'The baroness stirred — ^no — her ladyship is in a sweet
sleep,’ says the chaplain, in a very soft voice. ‘I fear,
madam, for your ladyship’s cousin, Mr. Warrington.
I fear for his youth ; for designing persons who may get
about him ; for extravagances, follies, intrigues even, into
which he wull be led, and into which everybody will try
to tempt him. His lordship, my kind patron, bade me
to come and w^atch over him, and I am here accordingly,
as your ladyship knoweth. I know the follies of young
men. Perhaps I have practised them myself. I own it
with a blush,’ adds Mr. Sampson with much unction —
not, however, bringing the promised blush forw^ard to
corroborate the asserted repentance.
‘ Betw^een ourselves, I fear Mr. Warrington is in some
366
THE VIRGINIAHS
trouble now, madam,’ continues the chaplain, steadily
looking at Lsdy Maria.
‘ What, again ? ’ shrieks the lady.
‘ Hush ! Your ladyship’s dear invalid ! ’ whispers the
chaplain, again pointing towards Madame Bernstein. ‘ Do
you think your cousin has any partiality for any — any
member of Mr. Lambert’s family ? for example, Miss
Lambert ? ’
‘There is nothing between him and Miss Lambert,’
says Lady Maria.
‘ Your ladyship is certain ? ’
‘ Women are said to have good eyes in such matters,
my good Sampson,’ says my lady with an easy air. ‘ I
thought the little girl seemed to be following him.’
‘ Then I am at fault once more,’ the frank chaplain said.
‘ Mr. Warrington said of the young lady, that she ought
to go back to her doll, and called her a pert stuck-up little
hussy.’
‘ Ah ! ’ sighed Lady Maria, as if relieved by the news.
‘ Then, madam, there must be somebody else,’ said the
chaplain. ‘ Has he confided nothing to your ladyship ? ’
‘ To me, Mr. Sampson ? What ? Where ? How ? ’
exclmms Maria.
‘ Some six days ago, after we had been dining at the
“White Horse ”, and drinking too freely, Mr. Warrington
lost a pocket-book containing letters.’
‘ Letters ? ’ gasps Lady Maria.
‘ And probably more money than he likes to own,’
continues Mr. Samj^n, with a grave nod of the head.
‘ He is very much disturbed about the book. We have
both made cautious inquiries about it. We have
Gracious powers, is your ladyship ill ? ’
Here my Lady Maria gave three remarkably shrill screams,
and tumbled off her chair.
‘ I will see the prince. I have a right to see him. What’s
this ? — ^Where am I ? — ^What’s the matter ? ’ cries Madame
Bernstein, waking up from her sleep. She had been dream-
ing of old days, no doubt. The old lady shook in all her
limbs — ^her face was very much fiushed. She stared
about wildly a moment, and then tottered forward on her
tortoise-shell cane. ‘ '^at — ^what’s the matter ? ’ she
asked again. ‘ Have you killed her, sir ? ’
Some sudden qualm must have come over her ladyship.
ENTANGLEMENIS
367
Shall I cut her laces, madam ? or send for a doctor ? ’
cries the chaplain, with every look of innocence and
alarm.
‘ What has passed between you, sir ? ’ asked the old
lady, fiercely.
‘ I give you my honour, madam, I have done I don’t
know what, I but mentioned that Mr. Warrington had lost
a pocket-book containing letters, and my l^y swooned,
as you see.’
Madame Bernstein dashed w^ater on her niece’s face.
A feeble moan told presently that the lady was coming
to herself.
The baroness looked sternly after Mr. Sampson, as she
sent him aw’ay on his errand for the doctor. Her aunt’s
grim countenance was of little comfort to poor Maria
when she saw it on waking up from her swoon.
‘ What has happened ? ’ asked the younger lady, bewil-
dered and gasping.
‘ Hm 1 Y(m know best what has happened, madam, I
suppose. What hath happened before in our family ? ’ cried
the old baroness, glaring at her niece -with savage eyes.
‘ Ah ! yes ! the letters have been lost — ach, lieber Him-
md ! ’ And Maria, as she w^ould sometimes do, when much
moved, began to speak in the language of her mother.
‘ Yes ! the seal has been broken, and the letters have
been lost. ’Tis the old story of the Esmonds,’ cried the
elder, bitterly.
‘ Seal broken, letters lost ? What do you mean, aunt ? ’
asked Maria, faintly.
‘ I mean that my mother was the only honest woman
that ever entered the family ! ’ cried the baroness, stamping
her foot. ‘ And she was a parson’s daughter of no family
in particular, or she would have gone wrong, too. Good
Heavens ! is it decreed that we are all to be ? ’
‘ To be what, madam ? ’ cried Maria.
‘ To be what my Lady Queensberry said we were last
night. To be what we are. I You know the word for
it ! ’ cried the indignant old woman. ‘ I say, what has
come to the whole race ? Your father’s mother w^as an
honest woman, Maria, Why did I leave her ? Why
couldn’t you remain so ? ’
‘ Madam ! ’ exclaims Maria, ‘ I declare, before Heaven,
I am as ’
m
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Bith ! Don’t madam me ! Don’t call Heaven to
witness — there’s nobody by ! And if you swore to your
innocence till the rest of your teetli dropped out of your
mouth, my Lady Maria Esmond, I would not believe you ! ’
‘ Ah ! It was you told him ! ’ gasped Maria. She
recognized an arrow out of her aunt’s quiver.
‘ I saw some folly going on between you and the boy,
and I told him that you were as old as his mother. Yes,
I did 1 Do you suppose I am going to let Henry Esmond’s
boy fling himself and his wealth away upon such a battered
old rock as you ? The boy shan’t be robbed and cheated
in our family. Not a shilling of mine shall any of you have
if he comes to any harm amongst you.’
‘ All ! you told him ! ’ cried Maria, with a sudden burst
of rebellion. ‘ WeU, then ! I’d have you to know that
I don’t care a penny, madam, for your paltiy money !
I have Mr. Harry Warrington’s word — yes, and his letters —
and I know he vnU die rather than break it.’
‘ He will die if he keeps it ! ’ ( Maria shrugged her shoul-
ders.) ‘ But you don’t care for that — ^you’ve no more
heart
‘ Than my father!s sister, madam ! ’ cries Maria again.
The younger woman, ordinarily submissive, had turned upon
her persecutor.
‘ Ah ! Why did not I marry an honest man ? ’ said the
old lady, shaking her head sadly. ‘ Henry Esmond was
noble and good, and perhaps might have made me so.
But no, no — we have all got the taint in us — all ! You
don’t mean to sacrifice this boy, Maria ? ’
^Madame ma tante^ do you take me for a fool at my age ? ’
asks Maria.
‘ Set him free ! I’U give you five thousand pounds — ^in
my — ^in my will, Maria. I mil, on my honour ! ’
‘ When you were young, and you liked Colonel Esmond,
you threw him aside for an earl, and the earl for a duke ? ’
‘ Yes.’
‘ Eh ! Bon sang ne pent mentir I I have no money, I
have no friends. My father was a spendthrift, my brother
is a beggar. I have Mr. Warrington’s word, and I know,
madam, he vull keep it. And that’s what I tell your
ladyship ! ’ cries Lady Maria vith a wave of her hand.
‘Suppose my letters are published to all the world to-
morrow ? Apres ? I know they contain things I would
ENTANGLEMENTS
369
as lieve not tell. Things not about me alone. Comment !
Do you suppose there are no stories but mine in the
family ? It is not my letters that I am afraid of, so long
as I have his, madam. Yes, his and his word, and I trust
them both.’
‘ I will send to my merchant, and give you the money
now, Maria,’ pleaded the old lady.
‘ No, I shall have my pretty Harry, and ten times five
thousand pounds ! ’ cries Maria.
‘ Not till his mother’s death, madam, who is just your
age ! ’
‘ We can afford to wait, aunt. At my age, as you say,
I am not so eager as young chits for a husband.’
‘ But to wait my sister’s death, at least, is a drawback ? ’
‘ Offer me ten thousand pounds. Madam Tusher, and
then we will see ! ’ cries Maria.
‘ I have not so much money in the world, Maria,’ said
the old lady.
‘ Then, madam, let me make what I can for myself ! ’
‘ Ah, if he heard you ? ’
‘ ? I have his word. I know he will keep it.
I can afford to wait, madam,’ and she flung out of the room,
juBt as the chaplain returned. It was Madame Bernstein
who wanted cordials now. She was immensely moved
and shocked by the news which had been thus suddenly
brought to her.
370
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XXXVI
WHICH SEEMS TO MEAN MISCHIEP
HOUGH she had clearly
had the worst of the
battle described in
the last chapter, the
Baroness Bernstein,
when she next met
her niece, showed no
rancour or anger.
‘ Of course, my L^y
Maria,’ she said,
‘ you can’t suppose
that I, as Harry War-
rington’s near rela-
tive, can be pleased
at the idea of his
marrying a woman
who is as old as his
mother, and has not a penny to her fortune ; but if he chooses
to do so silly a thing, the afeir is none of mine ; and I doubt
whether I should have been much inclined to be taken
au s&riewx with regard to that offer of five thousand pounds
which I made in the heat of our talk. So it was already
at Castlewood that this pretty affair was arranged ? Had
I known how far it had gone, my dear, I should have spared
some needless opposition. "When a pitcher is broken, what
railing can mend it ? ’
^ Madam I ’ here interposed Maria.
‘ Pardon me — I mean nothing against your ladyship’s
honour or character, which, no doubt, are quite safe.
Harry says so, and you say so — what more can one ask ? ’
‘ You have talked to Mr. Warrington, madam ? ’
^ And he has ovmed that he made you a promise at
Castlewood : that you have it in his writing.’
* Certainly I have, madam ! ’ says Lady Maria.
* Ah ! ’ (The elder lady did not wince at this.) ' And
I owm, too, that at first I put a wrong construction upon
SEEMS TO MEAN MISCHIEF
371
the tenor of your letters to him. They implicate other
members of the family ^
‘ WTio have spoken most \\ickedly of me, and endeavoured
to prejudice me in every way in my dear Mr. Warrington'^s
eyes. Yes, madam, I own I have VTitten against them,
to justify myself.’
‘ But, of course, are pained to think that any wretch
should get possession of stories to the disadvantage of our
family, and make them public scandal. Hence your
disquiet just now.’
‘ Exactly so,’ said Lady Maria. ‘ From Mr. Warrington,
I could have nothing concealed henceforth, and spoke
freely to him. But that is a very different thing from
wishing all the world to know the disputes of a noble
family.’
‘ Upon my word, Maria, I admire you, and have done
you injustice these — ^these twenty years, let us say.’
* I am very glad, madam, that you end by doing me
justice at all,’ said the niece.
‘ When I saw you last night, opening the ball with my
nephew, can you guess what I thought of, my dear ? ’
‘ I really have no idea what the Baroness de Bernstein
thought of,’ said Lady Maria, haughtily.
‘ I remembered that you had performed to that very
tune with the dancing-master at Kensington, my dear ! ’
‘ Madam, it was an infamous calumny.’
‘ By w’hich the poor dancing-master got a cudgelling for
nothing I ’
‘ It is cruel and unkind, madam, to recall that calunmy —
and I shall beg to decline living any longer with any one
w’-ho utters it,’ continued Maria, with great spirit.
‘ You wish to go home ? I can fancy you won’t like
Tunbridge. It will be very hot for you if those letters are
found.’
‘ There was not a word against you in them, madam :
about that I can make your mind easy.’
‘ So Harry said, and did your ladyship justice. Well,
my dear, we are tired of one another, and shall be better
apart for a while.’
‘ That is precisely my own opinion,’ said Lady Maria,
dropping a curtsy.
‘Mr. Sampson can escort you to Castlewood. You
and your maid can take a post-chaise.’
372
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ We can take a post-chaise, and Mr. Sampson can escort
me,’ echoed the younger lady. ‘ You see, madam, I act
like a dutiful niece.’
‘ Do you know, my dear, I have a notion that Sampson
has got the letters ? ’ said the baroness, frankly.
‘ I confess that such a notion has passed through my
own mind.’
‘ And you want to go home in the chaise, and coax the
letters from him ? Delilah ! Well, they can be no good
to me, and I trust you may get them. When will you go ?
The sooner the better, you say ? We are women of the
world, Maria. We only call names when we are in a passion.
We don’t want each other’s company ; and we part on
good terms. Shall we go to my l^adj Yarmouth’s ? ’Tis
her night. There is nothing like a change of scene after
one of those little nervous attacks you have had, and cards
drive away unpleasant thoughts better than any doctor,’
Lady Maria agreed to go to Lady Yarmouth’s cards,
and was dressed and ready first, awaiting her aunt in the
drawing-room. Madame Bernstein, as she came down,
remarked IVIaria’s door was left open. ‘ She has the letters
upon her,’ thought the old lady. And the pair went off
to their entertainment in their respective chairs, and
exhibited towards each other that charming cordiality and
respect which w’omen can show after, and even during, the
bitterest quarrels.
That night, on their return from the coimtess’s drum,
Mrs. Brett, Madame Bernstein’s maid, presented herself
to my Lady Maria’s call, when that lady rang her hand-
bell upon retiring to her room. Betty, Mrs. Brett was
ashamed to say, was not in a fit state to come before my
lady. Betty had been a-junketing and merry-making
with Mr. Warrington’s black gentleman, with my Lord
Bamborough’s valet, and several more ladies and gentlemen
of that station, and the liquor — ^Mrs. Brett was shocked
to own it — had proved too much for Mrs. Betty. Should
Mrs. Brett undress my lady ? My lady said she would
undress without a maid, and gave Mrs. Brett leave to
withdraw. ‘ She has the letters in her stays,’ thought
Madame Bernstein. They had bidden each other an
amicable good-night on the stairs.
Mrs. Betty had a scolding the next morning, when she
came to wait on her mistress, from the closet adjoining
SEE^IS TO MEAN mSCHIEF
373
Lady Maria’s apartment in which Betty lay. She ow^ned,
with contrition, her partiality for rum-punch, w^hich
Mr. Gumbo had the knack of brewing most delicate. She
took her scolding with meekness, and, having performed
her usual duties about her lady’s person, retired.
Now’ Betty w’as one of the Castlew’ood girls who had
been so fascinated by Gumbo, and w’as a very good-looking,
blue-eyed lass, upon w*hom Mr. Case, Madame Bernstein’s
confidential man, had also cast the eyes of affection.
Hence, between Messrs. Gumbo and Case, there had been
jealousies, and even quarrels ; w’hich had caused Gumbo,
who w’as of a peaceful disposition, to be rather shy of the
baroness’s gentlemen, the chief of whom vow*ed he w’ould
break the bones, or have the life, of Gumbo, if he persisted
in his attentions to Mrs. Betty.
But, on the night of the rum-punch, though Mr. Case
found Gumbo and Mrs. Betty w^hispering in the doorway,
in the cool breeze, and Gumbo would have turned pale
with fear had he been able so to do, no one could be more
gracious than Mr. Case. It w^as he who proposed the bowl
of punch, w’hich w'as brew’ed and drunk in Mrs. Betty’s
room, and w’hich Gumbo concocted with exquisite skill.
He complimented Gumbo on his music. Though a sober
man ordinarily, he insisted upon more and more drinking,
until poor life. Betty was reduced to the state which
occasioned her lady’s just censure.
As for Mr. Case himself, w’ho lay out of the house, he was
so ill with the punch, that he kept his bed the whole of the
next day, and did not get strength to make his appearance,
and w^ait on his ladies, until supper-time ; wiien his mistress
good-naturedly rebuked him, saying that it w’as not often
he sinned in that w’ay.
‘ Why, Case, I could have made oath it w’as you I saw
on horseback this morning galloping on the London road,’
said Mr. Warrington, wiio w’as supping with his relatives.
‘ Me ; law’ bless you, sir ! I w’as a-bed, and I thought
my head w’ould come off with the aching. I ate a bit at
six o’clock, and drunk a deal of small beer, and I’m almost
my own man again now’. But that Gumbo, saving your
honour’s presence, I w’on’t taste none of his punch again.’
And the honest major-domo w’ent on with his duties among
the bottles and glasses.
As they sat after their meal, Madame Bernstein was
374
THE VIRGINIANS
friendly enough. She prescribed strong fortifying drinks
for Mariaj against the recurrence of her fainting fits. The
lady had such attacks not unfrequently. She urged her to
consult her London physician, and to send up an account
of her case by Harry. By Harry ? asked the lady. Yes.
Harry was going for two days on an errand for his aunt to
London. ‘ I do not care to tell you, my dear, that it is on
business which will do him good. I wish 3\Ir. Draper to
put liim into my will, and as I am going travelling upon
a round of visits w’hen you and I part, I think, for security,
I shall ask Mr. Warrington to take my trinket-box in his
post-chaise to London with him, for there have been
robberies of late, and I have no fancy for being stopped
by highwaymen.’
Maria looked blank at the notion of the young gentleman’s
departure, but hoped that she might have his escort back
to Castlewood, w^hither her elder brother had now returned.
‘ Nay,’ says his aunt, ‘ the lad hath been tied to our apron-
strings long enough. A day in London will do him no
harm. He can perform my errand for me and be back with
you by Saturday.’
‘ I would offer to accompany Mr. Warrington, but I preach
on Friday before her ladyship,’ says Mr. Sampson. He
was anxious that my Lady Yarmouth should judge of his
powers as a preacher ; and Madame Bernstein had exerted
her influence with the king’s favourite to induce her to
hear the chaplain.
Harry relished the notion of a rattling journey to London
and a day or two of sport there. He promised that his
pistols w^ere good, and that he would hand the diamonds
over in safety to the banker’s strong-room. Would he
occupy his aunt’s London house ? No, that would be
a dreary lodging with only a housemaid and a groom in
charge of it. He would go to the ‘ Star and Garter ’ in
PaU Mall, or to an inn in Govent Garden. " Ah ! I have
often talked over that journey,’ said Harry, his countenance
saddening.
‘ And with whom, sir ? ’ asked Lady Maria.
^ With one who promised to make it with me,’ said the
young man, thinking, as he always did, with an extreme
tenderness of the lost brother.
‘ He has more heart, my good Maria, than some of us ! ’
says Harry’s aunt, witnessing his emotion. Uncontrol-
SEEMS TO MEAN mSCHIEF
375
lable gusts of grief would, not unfrequently, still pass over
our young man. The parting from his brother ; the scenes
and circumstances of George’s fall last year ; the recol-
lection of bis words, or of some excursion at home which
they had planned together ; would recur to him and
overcome him. ‘ I doubt, madam,’ whispered the chaplain,
demurely, to Madame Bernstein, after one of these bursts
of sorrow, " whether some folks in England would suffer
quite so much at the death of their eider brother.’
But, of course, this sorrow was not to be perpetual ; and
we can fancy Mr. Warrington setting out on his London
journey eagerly enough, and very gay and happy, if it must
be owned, to be rid of his elderly attachment. Yes. There
was no help for it. At Castlewood, on one unlucky evening,
he had made an offer of his heart and himself to his mature
cousin, and she had accepted the foolish lad’s offer. But
the marriage now was out of the question. He must
consult his mother. She was the mistress for life of the
Virginian property. Of course, she would refuse her
consent to such a union. The thought of it was deferred
to a late period. Meanwhile, it hung like a w^eight round
the young man’s neck, and caused liim no small remorse
and disquiet.
No wonder that his spirits rose more gaily as he came
near London, and that he looked with delight from his
post-chaise windows upon the city as he advanced tow^ards
it. No highwayman stopped our traveller on Blackheath.
Yonder are the gleaming domes of Greenwich, canopied
with w^oods. There is the famous Thames with its count-
less shipping ; there actually is the Towner of London.
‘ Look, Gumbo ! There is the Towner ! ’ ‘ Yes, master,’
says Gumbo, w^ho has never heard of the Tower; but Harry
has, and remembers how he has read about it in Howell’s
Medulla, and how he and his brother used to play at the
Tow'er, and he thinks with delight now, how he is actually
going to see the armour and the jew^els and the lions. They
pass through Southwark and over that famous London
Bridge which was all covered with houses like a street
tw^o years ago. Now there is only a single gate left,
and that is coming down. Then the chaise rolls through
the City ; and, ‘ Look, Gumbo, that is St. Paul’s ! ’
" Yes, master ; St. Paul’s,’ says Gumbo, obsequiously, but
little struck by the beauties of the architecture, and
376
THE VIRGINIANS
so by the well-knowTi course we reach the Temple, and
Gumbo and his master look up \^ith awe at the rebel heads
on Temple Bar.
The chaise drives to Mr. Draper’s chambers in Middle
Temple Lane, where Harry handed the precious box over
to Mr. Draper, and a letter from his aunt, which the
gentleman read with some interest seemingly, and carefully
put away. He then consigned the trinket-box to his
strong-closet, went into the adjoining room, taking his
clerk with him, and then was at Mr. Warrington’s service
to take him to an hotel. An hotel in Covent Garden was
fixed upon as the best place for his residence. ‘ I shall
have to keep you for two or three days, Mr. Warrington,’
the lawyer said. ‘ I don’t think the papers which the
baroness wants can be ready imtil then. Meanwhile I am
at your service to see the town. I live out of it myself,
and have a little box at Camberwell, where I shall be proud
to have the honour of entertaining Mr. Warrington ; but
a young man, I suppose, will like his inn and his liberty best,
sir.’
Harry said yes, he thought the inn would be best, and
the post-chaise and a clerk of Mr. Draper’s inside was
dispatched to the ‘ Bedford whither the two gentlemen
agreed to walk on foot.
Mr. Draper and Mr. Warrington sat and talked for a while.
The Drapers, father and son, had been lawyers time out of
mind to the Esmond family, and the attorney related
to the young gentleman numerous stories regarding his
ancestors of Castlewood. Of the present earl, Mr. Draper
was no longer the agent : his father and his lordship had
had differences, and his lordship’s business had been taken
elsewhere : but the baroness was still their honoured client,
and very happy indeed was Mr, Draper to think that her
ladyship was so well-disposed towards her nephew.
As they were taking their hats to go out, a young clerk
of the house stopped liis principal in the passage, and
said : ‘ If you please, sir, them papers of the baroness was
given to her ladyship’s man, Mr. Case, two days ago.’
‘ Just please to mind your own business, Mr. Brown,’
said the lawyer rather sharply. ‘ This way, Mr, War-
rington. Our Temple stairs are rather dark. Allow me
to show you the way.’
Harry saw Mr. Draper darting a Parthian look of anger
SEEMS TO MEAN MISCHIEF
377
at Mr. Brown. ‘ So it vxis Case I saw on the London road
two days ago,’ he thought. ‘ What business brought the
old fox to London ? ’ Wherewith, not choosing to be
inquisitive about other folks’ affairs, he dismissed the
subject from his mind.
Whither should they go first ? First, Harry w'as for
going to see the place where his grandfather and Lord
Castlewood had fought a duel fifty-six years ago, in Leicester
Field. Mr. Draper knew the place well, and ail about the
story. They might take Covent Garden on their way
to Leicester Field, and see that Mr. Warrington was com-
fortably lodged. And order dinner, says Mr. Warrington.
No, Mr. Draper could not consent to that. Mr. Warrington
must be so obliging as to honour him on that day. In
fact, he had made so bold as to order a collation from the
‘ Cock ’. Mr. Warrington could not decline an invitation
so pressing, and walked away gaily with his friend, passing
under that arch where the heads were, and taking off his
hat to them, much to the lawyer’s astonishment.
‘ They were gentlemen who died for their king, sir.
My dear brother George and I always said we would salute
’em when we saw ’em,’ Mr. Warrington said.
‘ You’ll have a mob at your heels if you do, sir,’ said the
alarmed lawyer.
‘ Confound the mob, mr,’ said Mr. Harry, loftily ; but
the passers-by, thinking about their own affairs, did not
take any notice of ]VC. Warrington’s conduct, and he
walked up the thronging Strand, gazing with delight upon
all he saw, remembering, I dare say, for all his life after,
the sights and impressions there presented to him, but
maintaining a discreet reserve ; for he did not care to let
the lawyer know how much he was moved, or the public
perceive that he was a stranger. He did not hear much
of his companion’s talk, though the latter chattered cease-
lessly on the way. Nor w^as Mr. Draper displeased by the
young Virginian’s silent and haughty demeanour. A hun-
dred years ago a gentleman w^as a gentleman, and his
attorney his very humble servant.
The chamberlain at the ‘Bedford’ showed Mr. Warrington
to his rooms, bowing before him with delightful obsequious-
ness, for Gumbo had already trumpeted his master’s great-
ness, and Mr. Draper’s clerk announced that the new--
comer was a ‘ high fellar ’. Then, the rooms surveyed, the
378
THE VIRGINIANS
two gentlemen went to Leicester Field, Mr. Gumbo strutting
behind his master ; and, having looked at the scene of his
grandsire’s wound, and poor Lord Castlewood’s tragedy,
they returned to the Temple to Mr. Draper’s chambers.
Who was that shabby-looking big man Mr. Warrington
bowed to as they went out after dinner for a walk in the
gardens ? That was Mr. Johnson, an author, whom he
had met at Tunbridge Wells. ‘ Take the advice of a man
of the world, sir,’ says Mr. Draper, eyeing the shabby man
of letters very superciliously. ^ The less you have to do
with that kind of person the better. The business we have
into our office about them literary men is not very pleasant,
I can tell you.’ ‘ Indeed ! ’ says Mr. Warrington. He
did not like his new friend the more as the latter grew more
familiar. The theatres were shut. Should they go to
Sadler’s Wells ? or Marybone Gardens ? or Ranelagh ?
or how ? ‘ Not Ranelagh,’ says Mr. Draper ; ‘ because
there’s none of the nobility in town ; ’ but, seeing in the
newspaper that at the entertainment at Sadler’s Wells,
Islington, there 'would be the most singular kind of diversion
on eight hand-bells by Mr. Franklyn, as well as the sur-
prising performances of Signora Cattarina, Harry wisely
determined that he would go to Marybone Gardens, where
they had a concert of music, a choice of tea, coffee, and all
sorts of wines, and the benefit of Mr. Draper’s ceaseless
conversation. The lawyer’s obsequiousness only ended
at Harry’s bedroom door, where, "with haughty grandeur,
the young gentleman bade his talkative host good night.
The next morning, Mr. Warrington, arrayed in his
brocade bed-gown, took his breakfast, read the newspaper,
and enjoyed his ease in his inn. He read in the paper news
from his own country. And w^hen he saw the words,
Williamsburg, Virginia, June 7th, his eyes grew dim
somehow. He had just had letters by that packet of
June 7th, but his mother did not tell how, ‘ A great number
of the principal gentry of the colony have associated
themselves under the command of the Honourable Peyton
Randolph, Esquire, to march to the relief of their distressed
fellow subjects, and revenge the cruelties of the French and
their barbarous allies. They are in a uniform : viz. a plain
blue frock, nanquin or brown waistcoats and breeches,
and plain hats. They are armed each with a light firelock,
a brace of pistols, and a cutting sword.’
SEBMS TO MEAN MISCHIEF
3S1
‘ Ah, why ain’t we there. Gumbo ? ’ cried out Harry.
‘ Why ain’t we dar ? ’ shouted Gumbo.
* Why am I here, dangling at women’s trains ? ’ continued
the Virginian.
‘ Tliink dangling at women’s trains very pleasant, Master
Harry ! ’ says the materialistic Gumbo, who w’as also very
little affect^ by some further home news which his master
read : viz. that the Lcmely Sally ^ Virginia ship, had been
taken in sight of port by a French privateer.
And now reading that the finest mare in England, and
a pair of very genteel bay geldings, were to be sold at the
Bull Inn, the lower end of Hatton Garden, Harry determined
to go and look at the animals, and inquired his way to the
place. He then and there bought the genteel bay geldings,
and paid for them with easy generosity. He never said
w’hat he did on that day, being shy of appearing like
a stranger ; but it is believed that he took a coach and
went to Westminster Abbey, from which he bade the
coachman drive him to the Tower, then to Mrs. Salmon’s
Waxw’'ork, then to Hyde Park, and Kensington Palace ;
then he had given orders to go to the Royal Exchange,
but catching a glimpse of Covent Garden, on his way
to the Exchange, he bade Jehu take him to his inn, and cut
short his enumeration of places to which he had been, by
flinging the fellow a guinea.
Mr, Draper had called in his absence, and said he would
come again ; but Mr. Warrington having dined sumptuously
by himself, went ofl nimbly to Marybone Gardens again, in
the same noble company.
As he issued forth the next day, the bells of St. Paul’s,
Covent Garden, were ringing for morning prayers, and
reminded him that friend Sampson was going to preach
his sermon, Harry smiled. He had begun to have a
shrewd and Just opinion of the value of Mr. Sampson’s
sern^ons.
m
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XXXVII
m WHICH VAEIOUS MATCHES ABE FOUGHT
EABiNG in the London Advertiser,
which was served to his worship
with his breakfast, an invitation
to all lovers of manly British
sport to come and witness a trial
of skill between the great cham-
pions Sutton and Pigg, Mr.
Warrington determined upon
attending these performances,
and accordingly proceeded to
the Wooden House, in Mary-
bone Fields, driving thither the
pair of horses which he had
purchased on the previous day.
The young charioteer did not
know the road very well, and veered and tacked very much
more than was needful upon his journey from Covent
Garden, losing himself in the green lanes behind Mr. Whit-
field’s round tabernacle of Tottenham Road, and the fields
in the midst of which Middlesex Hospital stood. He
reached his destination at length, however, and found no
small company assembled to witness the valorous achieve-
ments of the two champions.
A crowd of London blackguards was gathered round the
doors of this temple of British valour ; together with the
horses and equipages of a few persons of fashion, who
came, like Mr. Warrington, to patronize the sport. A
variety of beggars and cripples hustled round the young
gentleman, and whined to him for charity. Shoeblack
boys tumbled over each other for the privilege of blacking
his honour’s boots ; nosegay women and flying fruiterers
plied Mr. Gumbo \^ith their wares ; piemen, pads, tramps,
strollers of every variety hung round the battle-ground.
A flag was flying upon the building ; and, on to the stage
in front, accompanied by a drummer and a horn-blower,
a manager repeatedly issued, to announce to the crowd that
the noble English sports were just about to begin.
VARIOUS MATCHES ARE FOUGHT 383
Mr. Warrington paid his money, and was accommodated
with a seat in a gallery commanding a perfect view of the
platform whereon the sports were performed ; Mr. Gumbo
took his seat in the amphitheatre below ; or, when tired,
issued forth into the outer world to drink a pot of beer,
or play a game at cards with his brother lackeys, and the
gentlemen’s coachmen on the boxes of the carriages waiting
without. Lackeys, liveries, footmen — ^the old society was
encumbered with a prodigious quantity of these. Gentle-
men or women could scarce move without one, sometimes
two or three, vassals in attendance. Every theatre had
its footmen’s gallery : an army of the liveri^ race hustled
round every chapel-door : they swarmed in ante-rooms :
they sprawled in halls and on landings : they guzzled,
devoured, debauched, cheated, played cards, bullied
visitors for vails ; — ^that noble old race of footmen is
wellnigh gone. A few thousand of them may still be left
among us. Grand, tall, beautiful, melancholy, we still
behold them on lev4e days, with their nosegays and their
buckles, their plush and their powder. So have I seen in
America specimens, nay camps and villages, of Red Indians.
But the race is doomed. The fatal decree has gone forth,
and Uncas with his tomahawk and eagle’s plume, and
Jeam^ with his cocked hat and long cane, are passing out
of the world where they once walked in glory*
Before the principal combatants made their appearance,
minor warriors and exercise were exhibited. A boxing
match came off, but neither of the men were very game or
severely punished, so that Mr. Warrington and the rest of
the spectators had but little pleasure out of that encounter.
Then ensued some cudgel-playing ; but the heads broken
were of so little note, and the wounds given so trifling
and unsatisfactory, that no wonder the company began
to hiss, grumble, and show other signs of discontent.
‘ The masters, the masters ! ’ shouted the people, where-
upon those famous champions at length thought fit to
appear.
The first who walked up the steps to the stage w^as the
intrepid Sutton, sw^ord in hand, w^ho saluted the company
with his wwlike w^eapon, making an especial bow’ and salute
to a private box or gallery in w’hich sat a stout gentleman,
w'ho was seemingly a person of importance. Sutton was
speedily follow^ed by the famous Pigg, to w^hom the stout
384
THE VIRGINIANS
gentleman waved a hand of approbation. Both men were
in their shirts, their heads were shaven clean, but bore
the cracks and scars of many former glorious battles.
On his burly sword arm, each intrepid champion wore an
' armiger or ribbon of his colour. And now the gladiators
shook hands, and, as a contemporary poet says : ‘ The
word it w^as bilboe.’ *
At the commencement of the combat the great Pigg
dealt a blow so tremendous at his opponent, that had it
encountered the other’s head, that comely noddle w’ould
have been shorn off as clean as the carving-knife chops
the carrot. But Sutton received his adversary’s blade
on his own sword, whilst Figg’s blow was delivered so
mightily that the weapon brake in his hands, less constant
than the heart of him who wielded it. Other swords were
now delivered to the warriors. The first blood drawn
spouted from the panting side of Figg amidst a yeE of
delight from Sutton’s supporters ; but the veteran appeal-
ing to his audience, and especially, as it seemed, to the stout
individual in the private gallery, showed that his sword
broken in the previous encounter had caused the wound.
WhEst the parley occasioned by this incident was going
on, Mr. Warrington saw a gentleman in a riding-frock
and plain scratch wig enter the box devoted to the stout
personage, and recognized with pleasure his Tunbridge
Wells friend, my Lord of March and Ruglen. Lord March,
who was by no means prodigal of politeness, seemed to
show singular deference to the stout gentleman, and Harry
remarked how his lordship received, with a profound bow,
some bank bills which the other took out foom a pocket-
book and handed to him. WhEst thus engaged, Lord March
spied out our Virginian, and, his interview with the stout
personage finished, my lord came over to Harry’s gallery
and warroly greeted his young friend. They sat and beheld
the combat waging with various success, but with immense
skill and valour on both sides. After the w^arriors had
sufficiently fought with swords, they fell to with the
quarter-staff, and the result of this long and delightful
battle was, that victory remained with her ancient champion
* Ihe antiquarian reader knows the pleasant poem in the sixth
volume of Dodsle/s Collection, in which the above combat is
described.
VARIOUS MATCHES ARE FOUGHT
m
Whilst the warriors were at battle, a thunderstorm had
broken over the building, and Mr. Warrington gladly
enough accepted a seat in my Lord March’s chariot, leaving
his own phaeton to be driven home by his groom. Harry
was in great delectation with the noble sight he had wit-
nessed : he pronounced this indeed to be something like
sport, and of the best he had seen since his arrival in
England : and, as usual, associating any pleasure which
he enjoyed with the desire that the dear companion of
his boyhood should share the amusement in common with
him, he began by sighing out, ‘ I wish ’ then he stopped.
‘ No, I don’t,’ says he.
‘ What do you wish and what don’t you wish ? ’ asked
Lord March.
‘I was thinking, my lord, of my elder brother, and
\idshed he had been with me. We had promised to have
our sport together, at home, you see ; and many’s the time
we talked of it. But he wouldn’t have liked this rough sort
of sport, and didn’t care for fighting, though he was the
bravest lad alive.’
‘ Oh ! he was the bravest lad alive, was he ? ’ asks my
lord, lolling on his cushion, and eyeing his Virginian friend
with some curiosity.
‘ You should have seen him in a quarrel with a very
gallant officer, our friend — ^an absurd affair, but it was hard
to keep George off him. I neveap saw a fellow so cool, nor
more savage and determined, God help me. Ah ! I wish for
the honour of the country, you know, that he could have
come here instead of me, and shown you a real Virginian
gentleman.’
‘ Nay, sir, you’ll do very well. What is this I hear of
Lady Yarmouth taking you into favour ? ’ said the amused
nobleman.
‘ I wiU do as weU as another. I can ride, and, I think,
I can shoot better than George ; but then my brother
had the head, sir, the head I ’ says Harry, tapping his own
honest skull. ‘ "^y, I give you my word, my lord, that
he had read almost every book that was ever vTitten ;
could play both on the fiddle and harpsichord, could com-
pose poetry and sermons most elegant. What can I do ?
I am only good to ride and play at cards, and drink bur-
gundy.’ And the penitent hung down his head. ‘ But
them I can do as w’ell as most fellows, you see. In fact,
VIEGINIANS o
386
THE VIRGINIANS
my lord. I’ll back myself,’ he resumed, to the other’s great
amusement.
Lord March relished the young man’s riaiveti, as the jaded
voluptuary still to the end always can relish the juicy,
wholesome mutton chop. ‘ By gad, Mr. Warrington,’
says he, ‘ you ought to be taken to Exeter Change, and put
in a show.’
‘ And for why ? ’
" A gentleman from Virginia w’ho has lost his elder
brother and absolutely regrets him. The breed ain’t
known in this country. Upon my honour and conscience,
I believe that you would like to have him back again.’
‘ Believe \ ’ cries the Virginian, growing red in the face.
‘ That is, you believe, you believe you would like him
back again. But depend on it you wouldn’t. ’Tis not
in human nature, sir ; not as I re^ it, at least. Here are
some fine houses we are coming to. That at the con^
is Sir Bichard Littleton’s, that great one was my Lord
Bingley’s. ’Tis a pity they do nothing better with this
great empty space of Cavendish Square than fence it with
these unsightly boards. By George ! I don’t know where
the town’s running. There’s Montagu House made into
a confounded Don Saltero’s museum, with books and stuffed
birds and rhinoceroses. They have actually run a cursed
out — ^New Road they call it — ^at the back of Bedford
House Gardens, and spoilt the duke’s comfort, though,
I guess, they will console him in the pocket. I don’t
know where the town will stop. Shall we go down Tyburn
Boa»d and the Park, or through Swallow Street, and
into the habitable quarter of the town ? We can dine
at Psdl Mall, or, iE you like, with you ; and we can
spend the evening as you like — with the Queen of
Spades, or. . .
‘ With the Queen of Spades, if your lordship pleases,’
says Mr. Warrington, blushing. So the equipage drove to
his hotel ia Covent Garden, where the landlord came
forward with his usual obsequiousness, and recognizing my
lord of March and Ruglen, bowed his wig on to my lord’s
shoes in his humble welcomes to his lordship. A rich young
English peer in the reign of George the Second ; a wealthy
patrician in the reign of Augustus ; — ^which would you
rather have been ? There is a question for any young
gentlemen’s debating clubs of the present day.
TARIOUS MATCHES ARE FOrOHT mi
best English dinner which could be produced, of
course was at the service of the young Virginian and his
noble friend. After dinner came wine in plenty, and of
quality good enough even for the epicurean earl. Over
the wine there w^as talk of going to see the fireworks at
Vauxhall, or else of cards. Harry, who had never seen
a firework beyond an exhibition of a dozen squibs at
Williamsburg on the Fifth of November (which he thought
a sublime display), W’ould have liked the Vauxhall, but
yielded to his guest’s preference for piquet ; and they
w ere very soon absorbed in that game.
Harry began by winning as usual ; but, in the course
of a half-hour, the luck turned and favoured my Lord
March, who was at first very surly, when Mr. Draper,
Mr. Warrington’s man of business, came bow^ing into the
room, where he accepted Harry’s invitation to sit and
drink. Mr. Warrington always asked everybody to sit and
drink, and partake of his best. Had he a crust, he w^ould
divide it ; had he a haunch, he w^ould share it ; had he
a jug of water, he would drink about with a kindly spirit ;
had he a bottle of burgundy, it w'^as gaily drunk with
a thirsty friend. And don’t fancy the virtue is common.
You read of it in books, my dear sir, and fancy that you
have it yourself because you give six dinners of tw’enty
people and pay your acquaintance all round ; but the
w^elcome, the friendly spirit, the kindly heart ? Believe
me, these are rare qualities in our sdfish wurld. We may
bring them with us from the country w’hen we are young,
but they mostly wither after transplantation, and droop and
perish in the stifling London air.
Draper did not care for wine very much, but it delighted
the lawyer to be in the company of a great man. He pro-
tested that he liked nothing better than to see piquet
played by tw’o consummate players and men of fashion ;
and, taking a seat, undismayed by the sidelong scowls of
his lordship, surveyed the game between the gentlemen.
Harry w^as not near a match for the experienced player
of the London clubs. To-night, too, Lord March held
better cards to aid his skill.
What their stakes were was no business of Mr. Draper’s.
The gentlemen said they wrould play for shillings, and
afterwards counted up their gains and losses, with scarce
any talking, and that in an under-tone. A bow’ on both
S88
THE VIKOINIANS
side®, a perfectly grave and polite manner on the part of
each, and the game went on.
But it was destined to a second interruption, which
brought an execration from Lord March’s lips. First was
heard a scuffling without — then a whispering — then an
outcry as of a woman in tears, and then, finally, a female
rushed into the room, and produced that explosion of
naughty language from Lord March.
‘ I wish your w^omen would take some other time for com-
ing, confound ’em,’ says my lord, laying his cards down
in a pet.
‘ "S^at, Mrs- Betty ! ’ cried Harry.
Indeed it was no other than Mrs. Betty, Lady Maria’s
maid ; and Gumbo stood behind her, his fine countenance
beslobbered with tears.
‘ What has happened ? ’ asks Mr. Warrington, in no little
perturbation of spirit. ‘ The baroness is well ? ’
* Help ! help i sir, your honour I ’ ejaculates Mrs. Betty,
and proceeds to fall on her knees.
‘ Help whom ? ’
A howl ensues from Gumbo.
‘ Gumbo I you scoundrel ! has anything happened
between Mrs. Betty and you ? ’ asks the black’s master.
Mr. Gumbo steps back with great dignity, laying his
hand on his heart, and saying, ‘No, sir; nothing hab
happened ’twix’ this lady and me.’
‘ It’s my mistress, sir,’ cries Betty. ‘ Help ! help ! here’s
the letter she have wrote, sir ! They have gone and took
her, sir ! ’
‘ Is it only that old Molly Esmond ? She’s known to
be over head and heels in debt ! Dry your eyes in the
next room, Mrs. Betty, and let me and Mr. Warrington
go on with our game,’ says my lord, taking up his
cards.
‘ Help ! help her ! ’ cries Betty again. ‘ Oh, Mr. Harry !
you won’t be a-going on with your cards, when my lady
calls out to you to come and help her ! Your honour used
to come quick enough when my lady used to send me to
fetch you at Castlewood ! ’
‘ Confound you \ can’t you hold your tongue ? ’ says my
lord, with more choice words and oaths.
But Betty w^ould not cease weeping, and it w^as decreed
that Lord March was to cease winning for that night.
JBAD >'EWS I’fiOil TraEKIDUE
VARIOUS MATCHES ARE FOUGHT
391
Mr. Warrington rose from his seat, and made for the bell,
saying :
‘My dear lord, the game must be over for to-night.
My relative writes to me in great distress, and I am bound
to go to her.’
‘ Curse her ! Why couldn’t she wait till to-morrow ? ’
cries my lord, testily.
Mr. Warrington ordered a post-chaise instantly. His own
horses would take him to Bromley.
‘ Bet you, you don’t do it within the hour ! bet you, you
don’t do it within five quarters of an hour ! bet you four to
one — or I’ll take your bet, which you please — that you’re
not robbed on Hackheath ! Bet you, you are not at
Tunbridge Wells before midnight ! ’ cries Lord March.
‘ Done I ’ says Mr. Warrington. And my lord carefully
notes dowm the terms of the four wagers in his pocket-book.
Lady Maria’s letter ran as follows : —
My deae Cousin, — I am fell into a tmpp^ I p^xjeive the
machinations of viUians. I am a prisnen ifetty will tell you ail.
Ah, my Henrico ! come to the resQ of your
Molly.
In half an hour after the receipt of this missive, Mr.
Warrington was in his post-chaise and galloping over
Westminster Bridge on the road to succour his kins-
w^oman.
THE VIEGINIANS
m
CHAPTER XXXVm
SAMPSON AND THE PHILISTINES
y liappy chance in
early Bfe led me
to become intimate
with a respectable
person who was born
in a certain island,
which is pronounced
to be the first gem
of the ocean by,
no doubt, imparti^
judges of maritime
jewellery. The
stories which that
person imparted to
me regarding his re-
latives who inhabited the gem above mentioned, w^ere such
as used to make my young blood curdle with horror, to
think there should be so much wickedness in the world.
Every crime which you can think of ; the entire Ten
Commandments broken in a general smash ; such rogueries
and knaveries as no story-teller could invent ; such murders
and robberies as ThurteU or Turpin scarce ever perpetrated ;
were by my informant accurately remembered, and freely
related, respecting his nearest kindred, to any one who
chose to hear him. It was a wonder how any of the
family still lived out of the hulks. Me brother Tim had
brought his fawther’s gree hairs with sorrow to the greeve ;
me brother Mick had robbed the par’sh church repaytedly ;
me sisther Annamaroia had jilted the captain and run
off with the ensign, forged her grandmother’s will, and stoic
the spoons, w’^hich Larry, the knife-boy, w’as hanged for.
The family of Atreus w^as as nothing compared to the race
of O’What-d’ye-call-’em, from w’hich my friend sprung ;
but no power on earth w’ould, of course, induce me to name
the country w^hence he came.
How great then used to be my 'iiaif astonishment to find
these murderers, rogues, parricides, habitual forgers of bills
SAMI^ON AND THE PHILISTINES
393
of exchange, and so forth, every now and then ’writing to
each other as ‘ my dearest brother ‘ my dearest sister
and for months at a time living on the most amicable
terms ! With hands reeking with the blood of his murdered
parents, Tim w’ould mix a screeching tumbler, and give
Maria a glass from it. With lips black with the perjuries
he had swwn in court respecting his grandmother’s
abstracted testament, or the murder of his poor brother
Thady’s helpless orphans, Mick would kiss his sister
Julia’s bonny cheek, and they would have a jolly night,
and cry as they talked about old times, and the dear old
Castle What“d’ye-call-’em where they were bom, and the
fighting Onetyoneth being quarthered there, and the
Major proposing for Cyaroloine, and the tomb of their
seented mother (who had chayted them out of the pro-
pertee), Heaven bless her soul ! They used to weep and
kiss so profusely at meeting and parting, that it w’as touch-
ing to behold them. At the sight of their embraces one
forgot those painful little stories, and those repeated
previous assurances that, did they tell all, they could hang
each other aU round.
What can there be finer than forgiveness t What more
rational than, after calling a man by every bad name
under the sun, to apologize, regret hasty expressions, and
so forth, withdraw the decanter (say) which you have
flung at your enemy’s head, and be friends as before ?
Some folks possess this admirable, this angel-like, gift of
forgiveness. It w’as beauttful, for instance, to see our
two ladies at Tunbridge Wells forgiving one another,
smiling, joking, fondling almost in spite of the hard w’ords
of yesterday — ^yes ; and forgetting bygones, though they
couldn’t help remembering them perfectly well. I wonder,
can you and I do as much ? Let us strive, my friend, to
acquire this pacable, Christian spirit. My belief is that
you may learn to forgive bad language employed to you ;
but, then, you must have a deal of practice, and be accus-
tomed to hear and use it. You embrace after a quarrel and
mutual bad language. Heaven bless us ! Bad wmds are
nothing when one is accustomed to them, and scarce need
ruffle the temper on either side.
So the aunt and niece played cards veryamicably together,
and drank to each other’s health, and each took a \ving
of the chicken, and pulled a bone of the merry-thought,
‘'o 3
394
THE VIRGINIANS
and (in conversation) scratched their neighbours’, not
each other’s, eyes out. Thus we have read how the Penin-
sular warriors, when the bugles sang truce, fraternized and
exchanged tobacco-pouches and wine, ready to seize their
firelocks and knock each other’s heads off when the truce
was over ; and thus our old soldiers, skilful in war, but
knowing the charms of a quiet life, laid their weapons
down for the nonce, and hob-and-nobbed gaily together.
Of course, whilst drinking with Jack Frenchman, you have
your piece handy to blow his brains out if he makes a hostile
move : but, meanwhile, it is a votre sante, mon camarade I
Here’s to you, mounseer ! and everything is as pleasant as
possible.^ Regarding aunt Bernstein’s threatened gout ?
The twinges had gone oft Maria was so glad ! Maria’s
fainting fits ? She had no return of them ? A slight
recurrence last night. The baroness was so sorry ! Her
niece must see the best doctor, take everything to fortify
her, continue to take the steel, even after she left Tunbridge.
How kind of aunt Bernstein to offer to send some of the
bottled waters after her I Suppose Madame Bernstein
says in confidence to her own woman, ‘ Fainting fits 1 —
pooh I — epilepsy ! — inherited from that horrible scrofulous
German motter I ’ What means have we of knowing the
private conversation of the old lady and her attendant ?
Suppose Lady Maria orders Mrs. Betty, her ladyship’s
maid, to taste every glass of medicinal w^ater first, declaring
that her aunt is capable of poisoning her ? Very likely
such conversations take place. These are but precautions
— these are the firelocks which our old soldiers have at their
sides, loaded and cocked, but at present lying quiet on
the grass.
Having Harry’s bond in her pocket, the veteran Maria
did not cho<^e to press for payment. She knew the world
too well for that. He was bound to her, but she gave
Mm plenty of day-rule, and leave of absence on parole.
It was not her object needlessly to chafe and anger her
young slave. She knew the difference of ages, and that
Harry must have his pleasures and diversions. ‘ Take
your ease and amusement, cousin,’ says Lady Maria.
‘ Frisk about, pretty little mousekin,’ says grey Grimalkin,
purring in the corner, and keeping watch with her green
eyes. About all that Harry was to see and do on his first
visit to London, his female relatives had of course talked
SAMPSON AND TEE PHILISTINES
35
and joked. Both of the ladies knew |>erfectly what were
a young gentleman’s ordinary amusements in those days,
and spoke of them with the frankness which characterized
those easy times.
Our wily Calypso consoled herself, then, perfectly, in the
absence of her young wanderer, and took any diversion
w'hich came to hand. Mr. Jack Morris, the gentleman
whom we have mentioned as rejoicing in the company of
Lord March and Mr. Warrington, was one of th^e diver-
sions. To live with titled personages was the delight of
Jack Morris’s life ; and to lose money at cards to an earl’s
daughter w^as almost a pleasure to him. Now% the Lady
Maria Esmond was an earl’s daughter who was very glad
to win money. She obtained x>ermission to take Mr. Morris
to the Countess of Yarmouth’s assembly, and played
cards with him — and so everybody was pleased.
Thus the first eight-and-forty hours after Mr. Warrington’s
departure passed pretty cheerily at Tunbridge Wells, and
Friday arrived, when the sermon was to be delivered
which we have seen Mr. Sampson preparing. The com-
pany at the Wells w’ere ready enough to listen to it. Sampson
had a reputation for being a most amusing and eloquent
preacher, and if there w^ere no breakfast, conjurer, dancing
bears, concert going on, the good Wells folk w^ould put
up with a sermon. He knew I^y Yarmouth w^as coming,
and w^hat a power she had in the giving of livings and the
dispensing of bishoprics, the Defender of the FaiHi of that
day having a remarkable confidence in her ladyship’s
opinion upon these matters ; — and so w'e may be sure that
Mr. Sampson prepared his very best discourse for her
hearing. When the Great Man is at home at the Castle,
and w^alks over to the little country church in the park,
bringing the duke, the marquis, and a couple of cabinet
ministers with him, has it ever been your lot to sit among
the congregation, and watch Mr. Trotter the curate and
his sermon ? He looks anxiously at the Great Pew ; he
falters as he gives out his text, and thinks, ‘ Ah, perhaps
his lordship may give me a living ! ’ Mrs, Trotter and
the girls look anxiously at the Great Pew^ too, and watch
the effects of papa’s discourse^ — the w'eU-knowm favourite
discourse — ^upon the bigwigs assembled. Papa’s first
nervousness is over : his noble voice clears, w’arms to his
sermon : he kindles : he takes his pocket-handkerchief
THE VIRGINIANS
m
out : he is coining to that exquisite passage which has made
them all cry at the parsonage : he has begun it ! Ah I
What is that humming noise, which fills the edifice, and
causes hobnailed Mehboeus to grin at smock-frocked
Tity^s ? It is the Right Honourable Lord Naseby,
snoring in the pew by the fire ! And poor Trotter’s
visionary mitre disappears with the music.
Sampson was the domestic chaplain of Madame Bern-
stein’s nephew. The two ladies of the Esmond family
patronized the preacher. On the day of the sermon,
the baroness had a little breakfast in his honour, at which
Sampson made his appearance, rosy and handsome, with
a fresh-floured wig, and a smart, rustling, new cassock,
which he had on credit from some church-admiring mercer
at the Wells. By the side of his patronesses, their lady-
ships’ lackeys walking behind them, with their great gilt
Prayer-bookis, Mr. Sampson marched from breakfast to
church. Every one remarked how w^ell the Baroness
Bernstein looked; she laughed, and was particularly
friendly with her niece ; she had a bow and a stately smile
for all, as she moved on, with her tortoiseshell cane. At
the door there was a dazzling conflux of rank and fashion —
all the fine company of the Wells trooping in ; and her
ladyship of Yarmouth, conspicuous with vermilion cheeks,
and a robe of flame-coloured taffeta. There were shabby
people present, besides the fine company, though these
latter w^ere by far the most numerous. What an odd-
looking pair, for instance, were those in ragged coats, one
of them with his carroty hair appearing under his scratch
wig, and who entered the church just as the organ stopped !
Nay, he couldnot have been a Protestant, for he mechanically
crossed himself as he entered the place, saying to his com-
rade, ‘ Bedad, Tim, I forgavrt I ’ by which I conclude that
the individual came from an island which has been men-
tioned at the commencement of this chapter. Wherever
they go, a rich fragrance of whisky spreads itself. A man
may be a heretic, but possess * genius : these Catholic
gentlemen have come to pay homage to Mr. Sampson.
Nay, there are not only members of the old religion
present, but disciples of a creed still older. Who are those
two individuals with hooked noses and sallow coimtenances
who worked into the church, in spite of some little opposi-
tion on the part of the beadle ? Seeing the greasy appear-
SAMi^O^s AND THE PHILISTINES
S97
ance of these Hebrew strangers, Mr. Beadle was for denying
them admission. But one wMspered into Ins ear, ' We
wants to be conwerted, gov’nor ! ’ another slips money
into his hand, — ^Mr. Beadle lifts up the mace with which
he was barring the doorway, and the Hebrew gentlemen
enter. There goes the organ ! the doors have closed.
Shall we go in, and listen to Mr. Sampson’s sermon, or lie
on the grass without ?
Preceded by that beadle in gold lace, Sampson walked
up to the pulpit, as rosy and jolly a man as you could
w'ish to see. Presently, w’hen he surged up out of his
plump pulpit cushion, why did his reverence turn as pale
as death ? He looked to the western church-door — there,
on each side of it, were those horrible Hebrew Caryatides.
He then looked to the vestry-door, wliich was hard by the
rector’s pew, in which Sampson had been sitting during
the service, alongside of their ladyships his patronesses.
Suddenly, a couple of perfumed Hibernian gentlemen
slipped out of an adjacent seat, and placed themselves on
a bench close by that vestry-door and rector’s pew, and
so sat till the conclusion of the sermon, with eyes meekly
cast down to the ground. How can we describe that sermon,
if the preacher himself never knew how’ it came to an
end ?
Nevertheless, it was considered an excellent sermon.
When it w’as over, the fine lawiies buzzed into one another’s
ears over their pews, and uttered their praise aad comments.
Madame Walmoden, w’ho was in the next pew to our
friends, said it was bew^diful, and made her dremble all
over. Madame Bernstein said it was excellent. Lady
Maria was pleased to think that the family chaplain
should so distinguish himself. She looked up at him,
and strove to catch his reverence’s eye, as he still sat in
his pulpit ; she greeted him with a little wave of the hand
and flutter of her handkerchief. He scarcely seemed to
note the compliment ; his face w as pale, his eyes w^era
looking yonder, towards the font, where those Hebrews
stfll remained. The stream of people passed by them —
in a rush, w^hen they were lost to sight, — in a throng — in
a march of twos and threes — in a dribble of one at a time.
Everybody w^as gone. The two Hebrew’s were still there
by the door.
The Baroness de Bernstein and her niece still lingered
398
THE VIRGINIANS
in the rector's pew, where the old lady was deep in conversa-
tion with that gentleman.
* Who are those horrible men at the door ? and what
a smell of spirits there is,’ cries Lady Maria, to Mrs. Brett,
her aunt’s woman, who had attended the tw^o ladies.
‘ Farewell, doctor ; you have a darling little boy : is
he to be a clergyman, too ? ’ asks Madame de Bernstein.
‘ Are you ready, my dear ? ’ And the pew is throwm open,
and Madame Bernstein, whose father was only a viscount,
insists that her niece, Lady Maria, who was an earl’s
daughter, should go first out of the pew.
As she steps forward, those individuals whom her lady-
ship designated as two horrible men, advance. One of
them pulls a long strip of paper out of his pocket, and
her ladyship starts and turns pale. She makes for the
vestry, in a vague hope that she can clear the door and
close it behind her. The two whiskyfied gentlemen are
up with her, however ; one of them actually lays his
hand on her shoulder and says : —
‘ At the shuit of Misthress Pincott of Kinsington, mercer,
I have the honour of arresting your leedyship. Me neem
is Costigan, madam, a poOT gentleman of Oireland, binding
to circumstances, and folrc^ to follow a disagrayable
profession. Will your leedyship walk, or shall me man go
fetch a cheer ? ’
For reply Lady Maria Esmond gives three shrieks, and
falls swooning to the ground. ‘ Keep the door, Mick ! ’
shouts Mr. Costigan. ‘ B^t let in no one else, madam,’
he says, very politely, to Madame de Bernstein. ‘ Her
ladyship has fallen in a feenting-fit, and will recover here,
at her aise.’
* Unlace her, Brett ! ’ cries the old lady whose eyes
twinkle oddly, and, as soon as that operation is performed,
Madame Bernstein seizes a little bag suspended by a hair
chain, which Lady Maria wears round her neck, and snips
the necklace in twain. ‘ Dash some cold water over her face,
it always recovers her ! ’ says the baroness. ‘ You stay
with her, Brett. How much is your suit, gentlemen ? ’
Mr. Costigan says, ‘The deem we have against her
leedyship is for one himdred and thirty-two pounds, in
which she is indebted to Mistiness Eliza Pincott.’
Meanwhile, where is the Reverend Mr. Sampson ? Like
the fabled opossum we have read of, who, w^hen he spied
SAMPSON AND THE PHILISTINES 401
the unerring gunner from his gum-tree, said : ‘ It’s no use,
major, I will come down,’ so Sampson gave himself up to
his pursuers. ‘ At whose suit, Simons ? ’ he sadly asked.
Sampson knew Simons, they likd met many a time before.
" Buckleby CJordwainer,’ says Mr. Simons.
‘Forty-eight pound and charges, I know,’ says Mr.
Sampson, with a sigh. ‘ I haven’t got the money. What
officer is there here V ’ Mr. Simons’s companion, Mr. Lyons,
here stepped forward, and said his house was most con-
venient, and often used by gentlemen, and he should be
most happy and proud to accommodate his reverence.
Two chairs happened to be in waiting outside the chapel.
In those two chairs my Lady Maria Esmond and Mr. Samp-
son placed themselves, and w’ent to Mr. Lyons’s residence,
escorted by the gentlemen to whom we have just been
introduced.
Very soon after the capture the Baroness Bernstein
sent Mr. Case, her confidential servant, with a note to her
niece, full of expressions of the most ardent affection :
but regretting that her heavy losses at cards rendered the
payment of such a sum as that in which Lady Maria
stood indebted quite impossible. She had written off to
Mrs. Pincott by that very post, however, to entreat her to
grant time, and as soon as ever she had an answer, would
not fail to acquaint her d^ir unhappy niece.
Mrs. Betty came over to console her mistress : and the
two poor women cast about for money enough to provide
a horse and chaise for Mrs. Betty ; who had very nearly
come to misfortune too. Both my Lady Maria and her
maid had been unlucky at cards, and could not muster
more than eighteen shillings betw’‘een them : so it was
agreed that Betty should sell a gold chain belonging to her
lady, and with the money travel to London. Now Betty
took the chain to the very toy-shop man •who had sold
it to Mr. Warrington, who had given it to his cousin:
and the toy-shop man, supposing that she had stolen the
chain, was for bringing in a constable to Betty. Hence,
she had to make explanations, and to say how her mistress
was in durance ; and, ere the night closed, all Tunbridge
Wells knew that my Lady Maria Esmond was in the hands
of bailiffs. Meanwhile, however, the money was found,
and Mrs. Betty whisked up to London in search of the
champion in whom the poor prisoner confided.
402
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Don’t say anything about that paper being gone !
Oh, the wretch, the wretch ! She shall pay it me ! ’ I
presume that Lady Maria meant her aunt by the word
‘ wretch Mr. Sampson read a sermon to her ladyship,
and they passed the evening over revenge and back-
gammon ; with well-grounded hopes that Harry Warrington
would rush to their rescue as soon as ever he heard of their
mishap.
Though, ere the evening was over, every soul at the
Wells knew what had happened to Lady Maria, and a
great deal more ; though they knew she was taken in
execution, the house where she lay, the amount — ^nay,
ten times the amount — ^for which she was captured, and
that she was obliged to pawn her trinkets to get a little
money to keep her in jail ; though everybody said that
old fiend of a Bernstein was at the bottom of the business,
of course they were all civil and bland in society ; and,
at my Lady Trumpington’s cards that night, where Madame
Bernstein appeared, and as long as she was within hearing,
not a word was said r^arding the morning’s transactions.
Lady Yarmouth asked the lioness news of her breddy
nephew, and heaard Mr. Warrington was in London. My
Lady Maria was not coming to Lady Trumpington’s that
evening ? My Lady Maria was indisposed, had fainted
at church that morning, and Avas obliged to keep her
room. The cards were dealt, the fiddles sang, the wine
went round, the gentlefolks talked, laughed, yawned,
chattered, the footmen waylaid the supper, the chairmen
drank and swore, the stars climbed the sky, just as though
no Lady Maria was imprisoned, and no poor Sampson
arrested.^
Perhaps Madame de Bernstein stayed at the assembly
until the very last, not willing to allow the company the
chance of speaking of her as soon as her back should be
turned. Ah, what a comfort it is, I say again, that we have
backs, and that our ears don’t grow on them ! He that has
ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton. Madame
Bernstein might have heard folks say, it was heartless of
her to come abroad, and play at cards, and make merry
when her niece was in trouble. As if she could help Maria
by staying at home, indeed I At her age, it is dangerous
to disturb an old lady’s tranquillity. ‘Don’t tell me,’
says Lady Yarmouth. ‘The Bernstein would play at carts
SAMPSON AND THE PHILISTINES
403
over her niece’s coffin. Talk about her heart ! who ever
said she had one V The old spy lost it to the chevalier
a tousand years ago, and has lived ever since perfectly well
without one. For how much is the Maria put in pnson V
If it w^ere only a small sum, we would pay it, it would vex
her aunt so. Find out, Fuchs, in the morning, for how
much Lady Maria Esmond is put in prison.’ And the
faithful Fuchs bowed, and promised to do her excel-
lency’s will.
Meanw'hile, about midnight, Madame de Bernstein went
home, and presently fell into a sound sleep, from winch
she did not wake up until a late hour of the morning, when
she summoned her usual attendant, w’ho arrived with her
ladyship’s morning dish of tea. If I told you she took
a dram with it, you would be shocked. Some of our
great-grandmothers used to have cordials in their ‘ closets ’.
Have you not read of the fine lady in Walpole, who said,
* If I drink more, I shall be “ muckibus ” ’ ? As surely
as Mr. Gough is alive now, our anoeetressee were accus-
tomed to partake pretty freely of strong waters.
So, having tipped off the cordial, Madame Bernstein
rouses and asks Mrs. Brett the news.
* He can give it you,’ says the waiting- woman, sulkily.
^He? Who?’
Mrs. Brett names Harry, and says Mr. Warrington
arrived about midnight yesterday — and Betty, my Lady
Maria’s maid, w’as with him. ‘ And my Lady Maria sends
your ladyship her love and duty, and hopes you slept
w^ell,’ says Brett.
‘ Excellently, poor thing ! Is Betty gone to her ? ’
‘ No ; she is here,’ says Mrs. Brett.
* Let me see her directly,’ cries the old lady.
‘ I’ll tell her,’ replies the obsequious Brett, and goes
away upon her mistress’s errand, leaving the old lady
placidly reposing on her pillow’s. Presently, tw^o pairs
of high-heeled shoes are heard pattering over the deal
floor of the bedchamber. Carpets w’-ere luxuries scarcely
known in bedrooms of those days.
‘ So, Mrs. Betty, you w’ere in London, yesterday ? ’ calls
Bernstein from her curtains.
‘ It is not Betty — it is I ! Good morning, dear aunt !
I hope you slept well,’ cries a voice wliich made old Bern-
stein start on her pillow\ It was the voice of Lady Maria,
404
THE VIRGINIANS
who drew the curtains aside, and dropped her aunt a low
curtsy. Lady Maria looked very pretty, rosy, and happy.
And vuth the little surprise incident at her appearance
through Madame Bernstein’s curtains, I think we may
bring this chapter to a close.
CHAPTER XXXIX
HAEEY TO THE EESCXJE
Y UEAE Loed Maech (wrote
Mr. Warrington from Tunbridge
Wells, on Saturday morning,
the 25th August, 1756) : — This
to inform yon (with satisfac-
tion) that I have won all our
three hetts. 1 was at Bromley
two minutes within the hour ;
my new horses kep a-going at
a capital rate. I drove them
myself, having the postilion by
me to show me the way, and
my black man inside with Mrs.
Betty. Hope they found the
drive vert/ 'pleasant. We were
not stopped on Blackheath,
though two fellows on horse-
back rode up to us, but not
liking the looks of our coun-
tenantses^ rode off again ; and
we got into Tunbridge Wells
(where I transacted my business )
at forty-five minutes after eleven. This makes me quitts with your
lordship after yesterday’s piquet, which I shall be very happy to
give you your revenge, and am.
Your most obliged, faithful servant,
H. Esmond Waeeington.
And now, perhaps, the reader will understand by what
means Lady Maria Esmond was enabled to surprise her
dear aunt in her bed on Saturday morning, and walk out
of the house of captivity. Having dispatched Mrs. Betty
to London, she scarcely expected that her emissary would
return on the day of her departure; and she and the
chaplain were playing their cards at midnight, after a small
refection which the bailiffs wife had provided for them.
HAERY TO THE RESCUE
405
when the rapid whirling of wheels was heard approaching
their house, and caused the lady to lay her trumps down,
and her heart to beat with more than ordinary emotion.
Whirr came the wheels — the carriage stopp^ at the
very door : there was a parley at the gate : then appeared
Mrs. Betty, with a face radiant with joy, though her eyes
w’ere full of tears ; and next, w'ho is that tall young gentle-
man who enters ? Can any of my readers guess ? Will
they be very angry if I say that the chaplain slapped
down his cards with a huzzay, w^hilst Lady Maria, turning
as white as a sheet, rose up from her chair, tottered forward
a step or two, and with an hysterical shriek, flung herself
in her cousin’s arms ? How many kisses did he give her ?
If they were deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein
secunda centum, and so on, I am not going to cry out.
He had come to rescue her. She knew he "would ; he w^as
her champion, her preserver from bondage and ignominy.
She wept a genuine flood of tears upon his shoulder, and as
she reclines there, giving w^ay to a hearty emotion, I protest
I think she looks handsomer than she has looked during the
whole course of this history. She did not faint this time :
she went home, leaning lovingly on her cousin’s arm, and
may have had one or two hysterical outbreaks in the night ;
but Madame Bernstein slept soundly, and did not hear
her.
‘You are both free to go home,’ were the first words
Harry said. ‘ Get my lady’s hat and cardinal, Betty, and,
chaplain, w'e’ll smoke a pipe together at our lodgings, it will
refresh me after my ride.’ The chaplain, w^ho, too, had
a great deal of available sensibility, was very much over-
come ; he burst into tears as he seized Harry’s hand, and
kissed it, and prayed God to bless his dear generous young
patron. Mr. Warrington felt a glow of pleasure thrill
through his frame. It is good to be able to help the
suffering and the poor ; it is good to be able to turn sorrow
into joy. Not a little proud and elated w^as our young
champion, as, with his hat cocked, he marched by the side
of his rescued princess. His feelings came out to meet
him, as it were, and beautiful happinesses with kind eyes
and smiles danced before him, and clad him in a robe of
honour, and scattered flowers on his path, and blew
trumpets and shawnns of sweet gratulation, calling, ‘Here
comes the conqueror ! Make w'ay for the champion ! ’
406
THE VIRGINIANS
And so they led Mm up to the king’s house, and seated him
in the hall of complacency, upon the cushions of comfort.
And yet it was not much he had done. Only a kindness.
He h^ but to put his hand in his pocket, and with an
easy talisman, drive off the dragon which kept the gate,
and cause the tyrant to lay down his axe, who had got
Lady Maria in execution. Never mind if his vanity is
puffed up ; he is very good-natured ; he has rescued two
unfortunate people, and pump^ tears of goodwill and
happiness out of their eyes ; — and if he brags a little
to-night, and swaggers somewhat to the chaplain, and talks
about London and Lord March, and White’s, and Almack’s,
with the air of a macaroni, I don’t think we need like him
much the less.
Sampson continued to be prodigiously affected. This
man had a nature most easily worked upon, and extra-
ordinarily quick to receive pain and pleasure, to tears,
gratitude, laughter, hatred, liking. In his preaching
profession he had educated and trained his sensibilities so
that they were of great use to him ; he was for the moment
wrhat he acted. He wept quite genuine tears, finding that
he could produce them freely. He loved you whilst he
was with you : he had a real pang of grief as he mingled
his sorrow with the widow or orphan ; and, meeting Jack
as he came out of the door, went to the tavern opposite,
and laughed and roared over the bottle. He gave money
very readily, but never repaid when he borrowed. He was
on this night in a rapture of gratitude and flattery towards
Harry Warrington. In all London, perhaps, the unlucky
Fortunate Youth could not have found a more dangerous
companion.
To-night Sampson was in his grateful mood, and full of
enthusiasm for the benefactor who had released him from
durance. With each bumper his admiration grew stronger.
He exalted Harry as the best and noblest of men, and the
complacent young simpleton, as we have said, was disposed
to take these praises as very well deserved. ‘ The younger
branch of our family,’ said Mr. Harry with a superb air,
‘ have treated you scurvily ; but by Jove, Sampson, my
boy, I’ll stand by you ! ’ At a certain period of bur-
guiMiian excitement, Mr. Warrington was always very
eloquent respecting the splendour of his family, ‘ I am
very ^ad I was enabled to help you in your strait. Count
HARRY TO THE RESCUE
407
on me whenever you want me, Sampson. Did you not
say you had a sister at boarding-school ? You will want
money for her, sir. Here is a little bill wliich may help
to pay her schooling,’ and the liberal young fellow passed
a bank-note across to the chaplain.
Again the man was affected to tears. Harry’s generosity
smote him.
‘ Mr. Warrington,’ he said, putting the bank-note a short
distance from him, ‘ I — I don’t deserve your kindness, —
by George, I don’t ! ’ and he swore an oath to corroborate
his passionate assertion.
‘ Psha ! ’ says Harry, " I have plenty more of ’em. There
was no money in that confounded pocket-book which
I lost last week.’
‘ No, sir. There was no money ! ’ says Mr. Sampson,
dropping his head.
‘ Hallo 1 How do you know, Mr. Chaplain ? ’ asks the
young gentleman.
^ I know because I am a villain, sir. I am not worthy
of your kindness. I told you so. I found the book, sir,
that night, when you had too much wine at Barbeau’s.’
^ And read the letters ? ’ asked Mr. Warrington, starting
up and turning very red.
"They told me nothing I did not know, sir,’ said the
chaplain. ‘ You have had spies about you whom you little
suspect — from whom you are much too young and simple
to be able to keep your secret.’
" Are those stories about Lady Fanny and my cousin
Will, and his doings, true then ’ inquired Harry.
" Yes, they are true,’ sighed the chaplain. " The house
of Castlewood has not been fortunate, sir, since your
honour’s branch, the elder branch, left it.’
" Sir, you don’t dare for to breathe a word against my
Lady Maria ? ’ Harry cried out.
" Oh, not for worlds ! ’ says Mr. Sampson, with a queer
look at his young friend, ‘ I may think she is too old for
your honour, and that ’tis a pity you should not have
a wife better suited to your age, though I admit she looks
very young for hers, and hath every virtue and accom-
plishment.’
‘ She is too old, Sampson, I know she is,’ says Mr. Warring-
ton, with much majesty ; " but she has my word, and you
see, sir, how fond she is of me. Go bring me the letters,
408
THE VIBGINIANS
sir, which you found, and let me try and forgive you for
having seizm upon them.’
‘ My benefactor, let me try and forgive myself I ’ cries
Mr. &mpson, and departed towards his chamber, leaving
his young patron alone over his wine.
Sampson returned presently, looking very pale. ‘ What
has happened, sir 1 ’ says Harry, with an imperious air.
The chaplain held out a pocket-book. ‘With your name
in it, sir,’ he said.
‘ My brother’s name in it,’ says Harry ; ‘ it was George
who gave it to me.’
‘ I kept it in a locked chest, sir, in which I left it this
morning before I was taken by those people. Here is
the book, sir, but the letters are gone. My trunk and
valise have also been tampered with. And I am a miser-
able, guilty man, unable to make you the restitution
which I owe you.’ Sampson looked the picture of woe
as he uttered these sentiments. He clasped his hands
toother, and almost knelt before Harry in an attitude
the most pathetic.
Who hii been in the rooms in Mr. Sampson’s and Mr.
Warrington’s absence ? The landlady was ready to go
on her knees, and declare that nobody had come in : nor,
indeed, was Mr. Warrington’s chamber in the least disturbed,
nor anything abstracted from Mr. Sampson’s scanty
wardrobe and possessions, except those papers of which
he deplored the absence.
Whose interest was it to seize them ? Lady Maria’s ?
The poor woman had been a prisoner all day, and during
the time when the capture was effected.
She certainly w’as guiltless of the rape of the letters.
The sudden seizure of the two — Case, the house-steward’s
secret journey to London, — Case, who knew the shoemaker
at whose house Sampson lodged in London, and all the
secret affairs of the Ifemond family, — ^these points considered
tc^ether and separately, might make Mr. Sampson think
that the Baroness Bernstein was at the bottom of this
nuschief. But why arrest Lady Maria ? The chaplain
knew nothing as yet about that letter which her ladyship
had lost ; for poor Maria had not thought it necessary
to confide her secret to him.
As for the pocket-book and its contents, Mr. Harry
was so swollen up with self-satisfaction that evening, at
HAJbCJtCi: XU TiUK KJiibULlj: 4Uy
winning his three bets, at rescuing his two friends, at the
capital cold supper of partridges and ancient burgundy
which obsequious Monsieur Barbeau had sent over to the
young gentleman’s lodgings, that he accepted Sampson’s
vows of contrition, and solemn promises of future fidelity,
and reached his gracious hand to the chaplain, and condon^
his offence. When the latter sw^ore Ms great gods, that
henceforth he would be Harry’s truest, humblest friend
and follower, and at any moment would be ready to die
for Mr. Warrington, Harry said, majestically, ‘ I tMnk,
Sampson, you would; I hope you would. My family-—
the Esmond family — ^has always been accustomed to have
faithful friends round about ’em — ^and to reward ’em too.
The wine’s with you, chaplain. What toast do you call,
sir ? ’
" I call a blessing on the house of Esmond-Warrington ! ’
cries the chaplain, with real tears in Ms eyes.
‘ We are the elder branch, sir. My grandfather was
the Marquis of Esmond,’ says Mr. Harry, in a voice noble
but somewhat indistinct. ‘ Here’s to you, chaplain — and
I forgive you, sir — ^and God bless you, sir — ^and if you had
been took for three times as much, I’d have paid it. Why,
what’s that I see through the shutters ? I am blest if
the sun hasn’t risen again ! We have no need of candles
to go to bed, ha, ha 1 ’ And once more extending his
blessing to Ms chaplain, the young fellow went off to sleep.
About noon Madame de Bernstein sent over a servant
to say that she would be glad if her nephew would come
over and drink a dish of chocolate with her, whereupon
our young friend rose and walked to Ms aunt’s lodgings.
She remarked, not without pleasure, some alteration
in his toilette : in Ms brief sojourn in London he had
visited a tailor or two, and had been introduced by
my Lord March to some of Ms lordsMp’s purveyors and
tradesmen.
Aunt Bernstein called Mm ‘my dearest child’, and thanked
Mm for Ms noble, his generous behaviour to dear Maria.
What a shock that seizure in church had been to her !
A still greater shock that she had lost three hundred only
on the Wednesday night to Lady Yarmouth, and was
quite a sec. ‘ Why,’ said the baroness, ‘ I had to send
Case to London to my agent to get me money to pay —
I could not leave Tunbridge in her debt.’
410
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ So Case did go to London ? ’ says Mr. Harry.
‘ Of course he did : the Baroness de Bernstein can’t
aflford to say she wants money. Canst thou lend me
some, child ? ’
‘ I can give your ladyship tw^enty-two pounds,’ said
Harry, blushing very red : ‘ I have but forty-four left
till I get my Virginian remittances. I have bought horses
and clothes, and been very extravagant, aunt.’
^ And rescued your poor relations in distress, you prodigal
good boy. No, child, I do not want thy money. I can
give thee some. Here is a note upon my agent for fifty
pounds, vaurien I Go and spend it, and be merry ! I
dare say thy mother will repay me, though she does not
love me.’ And she looked quite affectionate, and held
out a pretty hand, which the youth kissed.
‘ Your mother did not love me, but your mother’s
father did once. Mind, sir, you always come to me when
you have need of me.’
When bent on exhibiting them, nothing could exceed
Beatrix Bernstein’s grace or good humour. ‘ I can’t help
loving you, child,’ she continued, ‘ and yet I am so angry
with you that I have scarce the patience to speak to you.
So you have actually engaged yourself to poor Maria,
who is as old as your mother ? What will Madam Esmond
say ? She may live these hundred years and you will not
have wherewithal to support yourselves.’
‘ I have ten thousand pounds from my father, of my
own, now my poor brother is gone,’ said Harry, " that
will go some way.’
‘ Why, the interest will not keep you in card-money.’
‘ We must give up cards,’ says Harry.
‘ It is more than Maria is capable of. She will pawn
the coat off your back to play. ' The rage for it runs in all
my brother’s family — ^in me, too, I own it. I warned you.
I prayed you not to play with them, and now a lad of
twenty to engage himself to a woman of forty-two I — to
write letters on his knees and signed with his heart’s blood
(which he spells like hartshorn) and say that he will marry
no other woman than his adorable cousin, Lady Maria
Esmond. Oh I it’s cruel — cruel i ’
‘ Great Heavens ! madam, who showed you my letter V ’
asked Harry, burning with a blush again.
‘ An accident. She fainted when she was taken by those
HARRY TO THE RESCUE
411
bailiffs. Brett cut her laces for her ; and when she wa^
carried off, poor thing, we found a little sachet on the floor,
which I opened, not Imo'wing, in the least, what it contained.
And in it was Mr. Harry Warrington’s precious letter.
And here, sir, is the case.’
A pang shot through Harry’s heart. Great Heavens 1
why didn’t she destroy it ? he thought.
‘ I — will give it back to Maria,’ he said, stretching
out his hand for the little locket.
‘ My dear, I have burned the foolish letter,’ said the old
lady. ‘ If you choose to betray me I must take the conse-
quence. If you choose to write another, I cannot help
thee. But, in that case, Harry Esmond, I had rather
never see thee again. Will you keep my secret ? Will
you believe an old woman who loves you and knows the
world better than you do ? I tell you, if you keep that
foolish promise, misery and ruin are surely in store for
you. "V^at is a lad like you in the hands of a wily woman
of the world, who makes a toy of you ? She has entrapped
you into a promise, and your old aunt has cut the stimgs
and set you free. Go back again ! Betray me if you
will, Harry.’
^ I am not angry with you, aunt — ^I wish I were,’ said
Mr. Warrington, with very great emotion. ‘ I — I shall
not repeat what you told me.’
‘ Maria never will, child — mark my words ! ’ cried the
old lady, eagerly. ‘ She will never own that she has lost
that paper. She will tell you that she has it.’
‘ But I am sure she — she is very fond of me ; you should
have seen her last night,’ faltered Harry.
‘ Must I tell more stories against my own flesh and blood ? ’
sobs out the baroness. ‘ Child, you do not know her past
life!’
‘ And I must not, and I wiU not ! ’ cries Harry, starting
up. ‘ Written or said — ^it does not matter wiuch I But
my word is given ; they may play with such things in
England, but we gentlemen of Virginia don’t break ’em.
If she holds me to my w^ord, she shall have me. If we
are miserable, as, I dare say, wre shall be, I’ll take a firelock,
and go join the King of Prussia, or let a ball put an end
to me.’
‘ I — ^I have no more to say. Will you be pleased to
ring that bell t I — I wish you a good morning, Mr.
412
THE VIRGmiANS
Warrington,’ and, dropping a very stately curtsy, the old
lady rose on her tortoiseshell stick, and turned towards
the door. But, as she made her first step, she put her hand
to her heart, sank on the sofa again, and shed the first
tears that had dropped for long years from Beatrix
Esmond’s eyes.
Harry was greatly moved, too. He knelt down by her.
He seized her cold hand, and kissed it. He told her, in
his artless way, how very keenly he had felt her love for
him, and how, with all his heart, he returned it. ‘ Ah,
aunt ! ’ said he, ‘ you don’t know what a villain I feel
myself. When you told me, just now, how that paper
was burn^ — oh ! I was asham^ to think how glad I was.’
He bowed his comely head over her hand. She felt hot
drops from his eyes raining on it. She had loved this
boy. For half a century past — ^never, perhaps, in the
course of her whole worldly life — ^had she felt a sensation
so tender and so pure. The hard heart was wounded
now, softened, overcome. She put her two hands on his
shoulders, and lightly kissed his forehead.
‘ You will not tell her what I have done, cliild?’ she said.
He declared ‘ Never I never I ’ And demure Mrs. Brett,
entering at her mistar^’s summons, found the nephew
smd aunt in this sentimental attitude.
413
CHAPTER XL
IN WHICH HAERY PAYS OFF AN OLD DEBT, AND INCTTRS
SOME NEW ONES
R Tunbridge friends were
now weary of the Wells,
and eager to take their
departure. When the au-
tumn should arrive, Bath
was Madame de Bern-
stein’s mark. There were
more cards, company, life,
there. She would reach
it after paying a few visits
to her country friends.
Harry promised, with
rather a bad grace, to ride
with Lady Maria and the
chaplain to Castlewood.
Again they passed by
Oakhurst village, and the
hospitable house where
Harry had been so kindly entertained, Maria made
so many keen remarks about the young ladies of Oak-
hurst, and their setting their caps at Harry, and the
mother’s evident desire to catch him for one of them,
that, somewhat in a pet, Mr. Warrington said he would
pass his friend’s door, as her ladyship disliked and abused
them ; and was very haughty and sulky that evening
at the inn where they stopped, some few miles further on
the road. At supper, my Lady Maria’s smiles brought
no corresponding good humour to Harry’s face ; her
tears (which her ladyship had at command) did not seem
to create the least sympathy from Mr, Warrington ; to
her querulous remarks he growled a surly reply ; and
my lady was obliged to go to bed at length without getting
a single tete-d-tete with her cousin, — that obstinate chaplain,
as if by order, persisting in staying in the room. Had
Harry given Sampson orders to remain ? She departed
with a sigh. He bowled her to the door with an obstinate
414
THE VIRGINIANS
politeness, and consigned her to the care of the landlady
and her msdd.
What horse was that which galloped out of the inn
yard ten minutes after Lady Maria had gone to her cham-
ber ? An hour after her departure from their supper-
room, Mrs, Betty came in for her lady’s bottle of smelling-
salts, and found Parson Sampson smoking a pipe alone.
Mr. Warrington was gone to bed — w^as gone to fetch
a walk in the moonlight — ^how should he know where Mr.
Harry was ? Sampson answered, in reply to the maid’s
interrogatories. Warrington ^was ready to set forward
the next morning, and took his place by the side of Lady
Maria’s carriage. But his brow was black — ^the dark
spirit was still on him. He hardly spoke to her during
the journey. ‘ Great Heavens ! she must have told him
that she stole it I ’ thought Lady Maria within her own
mind.
The fact is, that, as they were walking th^ steep
hill which lies about three miles from Oakhureli on the
Westerham road. Lady Maria Emiond, leaning on her
fond youth’s arm, and indeed very much in love with him,
had warbled into Ms ear the most sentimental vows,
protests, and expressions of aHecrion. As she grew fonder,
he grew coMer. As she looked up in his face, the sun
shone down upon hers, wMch, fresh and well preserved
as it was, yet showed some of the lines and wrinkles of two
score years ; and poor Harry, with that arm leaning on
his, felt it intolerably weighty, and by no means relished
his walk up the hill. To think that aU his life that drag
was to be upon him ! It was a dreary look forward ; and
he cursed the moonlight walk, and the hot evening, and
the hot wine which had made him give that silly pledge
by which he was fatally bound.
Maria’s praises and raptures annoyed Harry beyond
measure. The poor tMng poured out scraps of the few
pla 3 rs which she knew, that had reference to her case,
and strove with her utmost power to charm her young
companion. She called him, over and over again, her
champion, her Enrico, her preserver, and vowed that Ms
Mdinda would be ever, ever faithful to him. She clung
to Mm. ‘ Ah, cMld 1 Have I not thy precious image,
thy precious hair, thy precious vTiting Tiere ? ’ she said,
lookx^ in his face. ‘ Shall it not go with me to the grave ?
OLD AND NEW DEBTS
415
It would, sir, were I to meet with unkindness from my
Enrico ! ’ she sighed out.
Here was a strange story ! Madame Bernstein had given
him the little silken case — she had burned the hair and the
note which the case contained, and Maria had it still on
her heart ! It was then, at the start which Harry gave,
as she was leaning on his arm, — at the sudden movement
as if he “would drop hers — ^that Lady Maria felt her first
pang of remorse that she had told a fib, or rather, that she
was found out in telling a fib, 'which is a far more cogent
reason for repentance. Heaven help us ! if some people
were to do penance for telling lies, would they ever be out
of sackcloth and ashes ?
Arrived at Castlewood, Mr. Harry’s good humour was
not increased. My lord was from home ; the ladies also
were away ; the only member of the family whom Harry
found, was Mr. Will, 'who returned from partridge-shooting
just as the chaise and cavalcade reached the gate, and
who turned very pale when he saw his cousin, and re-
ceived a sulky scowl of recognition from the young
Virginian.
Nevertheless, he thought to put a good face on the
matter, and they met at supper, 'W’here, before my Lady
Maria, their conversation was at first civil, but not lively.
Mr. Will had been to some races ? to several. He had
been pretty successful in his bets ? Mr. Warrington hopes.
Pretty well. ‘ And you have brought back my horse
sound ? ’ asked Mr. Warrington.
‘ Your horse ? what horse ? ’ asked Mr. Will.
‘ What horse ? my horse ! ’ says Mr. Harry, curtly.
‘ Protest I don’t understand you,’ says Will.
‘ The bro-wn horse for which I played you, and 'which
I won of you the night before you rode away upon it,’
says Mh. Warrington, sternly. ‘ You remepnber the horse,
Mr. Esmond.’
' Mr. Warrington, I perfectly w^ell remember playing
you for a horse, which my servant handed over to you
on the day of your departure.’
" The chaplain was present at our play. Mr. Sampson,
'will you be umpire between us ? ’ Mr. Warrington said,
'with much gentleness.
‘ I am bound to decide that Mr. Warrington played for
the brown horse,’ says Mr. Sampson.
416
THE VIRGINIANS
* Well, he got the other one,’ said sulky Mr. Will, with
a grin.
‘ And sold it for thirty sMUings ! ’ said Mr. W'arrington,
alwajrs preserving his calm tone.
Will was waggish. ‘ Thirty shillings, and a devilish
good price too, for the broken-kneed old rip. Ha, ha ! ’
‘ Not a word more. ’Tis only a question about a bet,,
my dear Lady Maria. Shall I serve you some more
chicken ? ’ Nothing could be more stu<hously courteous
and gay than Mr. Warrington was, so long as the lady
remain^ in the room. When she rose to go, Harry followed
her to the door, and closed it upon her with the most
courtly bow of farew-ell. He stood at the closed door for
a moment, and then he bade the servants retire. When
those menials were gone, Mr. Warrington locked the
heavy door before them, and pocketed the key.
As it clicked in the lock, Mr. Will, who had been shying
over his punch, looking now and then askance at his cousin,
asked, with one of the oaths which commonly garnished
his conversation, what the Mr. Warrington meant by
that ?
‘ I guess there’s going to be a quarrel,’ said Mr. Waxring-
ton, blandly, ‘ and there is no use in having these fellows
look on at rows between their betters.’
‘ Who is going to quarrel here, I should like to know ? ’
asked Will, loddng very pale, and grasping a knife.
^ Mr. Sampson, you were present when I played Mr.
Will fifty guineas against bis brown horse.’
‘ Against his horse ! ’ bawls out Mr. Will.
‘ I am not such a fool as you take me for,’ says Mr.
Warrington, * although I do come from Virginia ! ’ and
he repeated his question : ‘ Mr. Sampson, you were here
when I played the Honourable William Esmond, Esquire,
fifty guineas against his brown horse ? ’
‘ I must own it, sdr,’ says the chaplain, with a deprecatory
look towards his lord’s brother.
^ I don’t own no such a thing,’ says Mr. Will, -with
rather a forced laugh.
* No, sir : because it costs you no more pains to lie
than to cheat,’ said Mr. Warrington, walking up to his
cousin. ‘ Hands off, Mr. diaplain, and see fair play !
Because you are no better than a — ha ! ’
No better than a what we can’t say, and shall never
OLD AND NEW DEBTS
417
know, for as Harry uttered the exclamation, his dear cousin
flung a wine bottle at Mr. Warrington’s head, who bobbed
just in time, so that the missile flew across the room, and
broke against the w'ainscot opposite, breaking the face
of a pictured ancestor of the Esmond family, and then
itself against the wall, whence it spirted a pint of good
port wine over the chaplain’s face, and floured wig. ‘ Great
Heavens, gentlemen, I pray you to be quiet,’ cried the
parson, dripping with gore.
But gentlemen are not inclined at some moments to
remember the commands of the Church. The bottle
having failed, Mr. Esmond seized the large silver-handled
knife and drove at his cousin. But Harry caught up the
other’s right hand with his left as he had seen the boxers
do at Marybone; and delivered a rapid blow upon Mr.
Esmond’s nose, w^hich sent him reeling up against the oak
panels, and I dare say caused him to see ten thousand
illuminations. He dropp^ his knife in his retreat against
the wall, which his rapid antagonist kicked under the
table.
Now Will, too, had been at Marybone and Hockley-in-
the-Hole, and after a gasp for breath and a glare over
his bleeding nose at his enemy, he dashed forward his head
as though it had been a battering ram, intending to project
it into Mr. Henry Warrington’s stomach.
This manoeuvre Harry had seen, too, on his visit to
Marybone, and amongst the negroes upon the maternal
estate, w’ho w^ould meet in combat like two concutient
cannon-balls, each harder than the other. But Harry
had seen and marked the civilized practice of the white
man. He skipped aside, and, saluting his advancing
enemy with a tremendous blow on the right ear, felled
him, so that he struck his head against the heavy oak
table and sank lifeless to the ground.
‘ Chaplain, you will bear witness that it has been a fair
fight ! ’ said Mr. Warrington, still quivering with the
excitement of the combat, but striving with all his might
to restrain himself and look cool. And he drew the key
from his pocket and opened the door in the lobby, behind
which three or four servants were gathered. A crash of
broken glass, a cry, a shout, an oath or two, had told them
that some violent scene was occurring within, and they
entered, and behold two victims bedabbled with red —
viRGimAiirs p
418
THE VIRGINIANS
the chaplain bleeding port wine, and the Honourable
William Esmond, Esquire, stretched in his o\^ti gore.
‘ Sampson will bear witness that I struck fair, and
that Mr. Esmond hit the first blow,’ said Mr. Warrington.
^ Undo his neckcloth, somebody, he may be dead ; and
get a fleam, Sambo, and bleed him. Stop I He is coming
to himself ! lift him up, you, and tell a maid to wash
the floor.’
Indeed, in a minute Mr. Will did come to himself. First
his eyes roiled about, or rather, I am ashamed to say,
his eye, one having been closed by Mr. Warrington’s first
blow\ First, then, his eye rolled about ; then he gasped
and uttered an inarticulate moan or two, then he began
to swear and curse very freely and articulately.
‘ He is getting well,’ said Mr. Warring^n.
‘ Oh, praise iS Mussy ! ’ sighs the sentimental Betty.
^ Ask him. Gumbo, whether he would like any more ? ’
said Mr. Warrington, with a stem humour.
‘ Massa Harry say, wool you like any maw ? ’ asked
obedient Gumbo, bowing over the prostrate gentleman.
* No, curse you, you black devil ! ’ says Mr. Will, hitting
up at the black ob|eet before him. ‘ So he nearly cut
my tongue in tu in my mouf I ’ Gumbo explained to the
pitying Betty. ‘ No, that is, yes ! You infernal Mohock !
Why does not somebody kick him out of the place ? ’
‘ Because nobody dares, Mi, Esmond,’ says Mr. Warring-
ton, with great state, arranging his ruffle — his rufS^
ruffles.
‘ Amd nobody won’t neither,’ growled the men. They
had afl grown to love Harry, whereas Mr. Will had nobody’s
good word. ‘ We know ail’s fair, sir. It ain’t the first
time Master William have been served so ! ’
‘ And I hope it won’t be the last,’ cries shrill Betty,
‘ to go for to strike a poor black gentleman so ! ’
Mr. Will had gathered himself up by this time, had
wiped his bleeding face with a napkin, and was skulking off
to bed.
‘ Surely it’s manners to say good night to the company.
Good night, Mr. Esmond,’ says Mr. Warrington, whose
jok^, though few, were not very brilliant, but the honest lad
rdiAed the brilliant sally, and laughed at it inwardly.
‘ He’s ad his zopper, and he goos to bald ! ’ says Betty,
in her native dialect, at w^hich everybody laughed outright,
OLD AND NEW DEBTS
419
except Mr. William, who went away leaving a black fume
of curses, as it were, rolling out of that funnel, his mouth.
It must be owned that Mr. Warrington continued to
be witty the next morning. He sent a note to Mr. Will
begging to know whether he was for a ride to town or any-
wheres else. If he was for London, that he would friten
the highw^aymen on Hounslow Heath, and look a very
genteel figar at the Chocolate House. Wiich letter, I fear,
Mr. Will received with his usual violence, requesting the
vTiter to go to some place — ^not Hounslow.
And, besides the parley between Will and Harry, there
comes a maiden simpering to Mr. Warrington’s door,
and Gumbo advances, holding something white and trian-
gular in his ebon fingers.
Harry knew what it was well enough. ‘ Of course it’s
a letter,’ groans he. Molinda greets her Enrico, &c. &c. &;c.
No sleep has she known that night, and so forth, and so
forth, and so forth. Has Enrico slept well in the halls of
his fathers ? Vnd, so weiter, und so wetter. He must never
never quaril and be so cruel again. Kai ta hipa. And
I protest I shan’t quote any more of this letter. Ah,
tablets, golden once, — are ye now faded leaves ? Where
is the juggler who transmuted you, and why is the glamour
over ?
After the little scandal with cousin Will, Harry’s dignity
would not allow him to stay longer at Castlewood ; he
wrote a majestic letter to the lord of the mansion, explain-
ing the circumstances which had occurred, and, as he
called in Parson Sampson to supervise the document,
no doubt it contained none of those eccentricities in spelling
which figured in his ordinary correspondence at this period.
He represented to poor Maria, that after blackening the
eye and damaging the nose of a son of the house, he should
remain in it with a very bad grace ; and she was forced
to acquiesce in the opinion that, for the present, his absence
would best become him. Of course, she wept plentiful
tears at parting with him. He would go to London, and see
younger beauties : he would find none, none who would
love him like his fond Maria. I fear Mr. Warrington did
not exhibit any profound emotion on leaving her : nay,
he cheered up immediately after he crossed Castlewood
Bridge, and made his horses whisk over the road at ten
miles an hour : he sang to them to go along : he nodded to
420
THE VIRGINIANS
the pretty girls by the roadside : he chucked my landlady
under the chin : he certainly was not inconsolable. Truth
is, he longed to be back in London again, to make a figure
at St. James’s, at Newmarket, wherever the men of fashion
congregated. Ail that pretty Tunbridge society of women
and card-playing seem^ child’s play to him now he had
tasted the delight of London life.
By the time he reached London again, almost all the
four-and-f orty pounds which we have seen that he possessed
at Tunbridge had slipped out of his pocket, and further
supplies were necessary. Regarding these he made himself
pr^ntly easy. There were the two sums of 5,OOOZ. in
his own and has brother’s name, of which he was the master.
He would take up a little money, and with a run or two
of good luck at play he could easily replace it. Meantime
he must live in a manner becoming his station, and it
must be explained to Madam Esmond that a gentleman
of his rank cannot keep fitting company, and appear as
becomes him in society, upon a miserable pittance of two
hundred a year.
Mr. Warrington sojourned at the ‘ Bedford ’ Coffee-house
as before, but only for a short while. He sought out proper
lodgings at the CJourt end of the town, and fixed on some
apartments in Bond Street, where he and Gumbo installed
themselves, his horses standing at a neighbouring livery
stable. And now' tailors, mercers, and shoemakers were
put in requisition. Not without a pang of remorse, he
laid aside his mourning and figured in a laced hat and
waist(x>at. Gumbo was always dexterous in the art of
dressing hair, and with a little powder flung into his fair
looks Warrington’s head was as modish as that of any
gentleman in the Mall. Se figured in the Ring in his
phaeton. Reports of his great wmlth had long since
preceded him to London, and not a little curiosity was
excited about the fortunate Virginian.
Until our young friend could be balloted for at the proper
season, my Lord March has written down his name for the
club at White’s Chocolate-house, as a distinguished gentle-
man from America. There were as yet but few' persons
of fashion in London, but with a pocket full of money
at one-and-twenty, a young fellow can make himself happy
even out of the season ; and Mr. Harry was determined
to enjoy*
OLD AND NEW DEBTS
421
He ordered Mr. Draper, then, to sell five hundred pounds
of his stock. What would his poor mother have said had
she knovn that the young spendthrift was already beginning
to dissipate his patrimony ? He dined at the tavern,
he supped at the club, where Jack Morris introduced him,
vith immense eulogiums, to such gentlemen as were in
tovm. Life, and youth, and pleasure w^ere before him,
the wine w’as set a-running, and the eager lad was greedy
to drink. Do you see, far aw’ay in the w^est, yonder, the
pious widow at her prayers for her son ? Behind the
trees at Oakhurst a tender little heart, too, is beating for
him, perhaps. When the Prodigal Son w^as aw^ay carousing,
were not love and forgiveness still on the watch for him ?
Amongst the inedited letters of the late Lord Orford,
there is one which the present learned editor, Mr. Peter
Cunningham, has omitted from his collection, doubting
possibly the authenticity of the document. Nay, I myself
have only seen a copy of it in the Warrington papers in
Madam Esmond’s prim handwriting, and noted ; ‘ Mr. H.
Walpole^ $ account of my son Henry at London^ and of Baroness
Tusher, — wrote to Gerd. Conway."*
Arungton Street, Friday night.
I have come away, child, for a day or two from my devotions to
our Lady of Strawberry. Have I not been on my knees to her these
three weeks, and aren’t the poor old joints full of rheumatism ?
A fit took me that I would pay London a visit, that I would go to
Vauxhall and Ranelagh. Quoi / May I not have my rattle as well
as other elderly babies ? Suppose, after being so long virtuous,
I take a fancy to cakes and ale, shall your reverence say nay to me ?
George Selwyn and Tony Storer and your humble servant took boat
at Westminster t’other night. Was it Tuesday ? — no, Tuesday
I was with their graces of Norfolk, who are just from Tunbridge —
it was Wednesday. How should I know ? Wasn’t I dead drunk
with a whole pint of lemonade I took at White’s ?
The Norfolk folk had been entertaining me on Tuesday with the
account of a young savage Iroquois, Choctaw, or Virginian, who has
lately been making a little noise in our quarter of the globe. He is
an offshoot of that disreputable family of Esmond-Castlewood, of
whom all the men are gamblers and spendthrifts, and all the women
— well, I shan’t say the word, lest Lady Ailesbury should be looking
over your shoulder. Both the late lords, my father told me, were in
his pay, and the last one, a beau of Queen Anne’s reign, from a
viscount advanced to be an earl through the merits and intercession
of his notorious old sister Bernstein, late Tusher, wee Esmond — a great
422
THE VIBGmiANS
beauty, too, of ber day, a favourite of the old Pretender. She sold
hk secrets to my papa, who paid her for them ; and being nowise
partacular in her love for the Stuarts, came over to the august
Hanoverian house at present reigning over us. ‘Will Horace
Walpole’s tongue never stop scandal ? ’ says your wife over your
shoulder. I kiss your ladyship’s hand. I am dumb. The !l&rn-
stein is a model of virtue. She had no good reasons for marrying
her father’s chaplain. Many of the nobility omit the marriage
altoge^er. She waanH ashamed of being Mrs. Tusher, and didn’t
take a German Baromino for a second husband, whom nobody out
of Hanover ever saw. The Yarmouth bears no malice. Esther
and Vashti are very good friends, and have been cheating each
other at Tunbridge at cards all the summer.
* And what has all this to do with the Iroquois ? ’ says your
ladyship. The Iroquois has been at Tunbridge, too — not cheating,
perhaps, but winning vastly. They say he has bled Lord March
of ^ousaads — Lord Msuch, by whom so much blood hath been
shed, that he has quarrellcKi with everybody, fought with every-
body, rode over everybody, been fallen in love with by everybody’s
wife except Mr. Conway’s, and not excepting her present Majesty,
the Countess of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Queen
of Walmoden and Yarmouth, whom Heaven preserve to us.
You know an offensive little creature, de par le monde, one Jack
Moras, who skips in and out of all the houses of London. When
we were at Vauidiall, Mr. Jack gave us a nod under the shoulder of
a pretty young fellow enough, on whose arm he was leaning, and
who appeared hu^ly delighted with the enchantments of the
garden. Lord, how he stared at the fireworks ! Gods, how he
huzzayed at the singing of a horrible painted wench who shrieked
the ears off my head ! A twopenny string of glass beads and a strip
of tawdry cloth are treasures in IrcKjuois knd, and our savage valued
them accordingly.
A buzz went about the place that this was the fortunate youth.
He won three hundred at White’s last night very genteelly from
Bockingham and my precious nephew, and here he was bellowing
and huzzaying over the music so as to do you good to hear. I do
not love a puppet-show, but I love to treat children to one. Miss
Conway ! I present your ladyship my compliments, and hope we
shall go and see the dolls together.
When the singing woman came down from her throne, Jack
Mcsrismust introduce my Virginian to her. I saw him blush up to
the eyes, and make her, upon my word, a very fine bow, such as I
had no idea was practised in wigwams. ‘ There is a certain jenny
about her, and that’s why the savage likes her,’ George said
— a joke certainly not as brilliant as a firework. After which it
seen^ to me that the savage and the savagess retired together.
Having had a great deal too much to eat and drink three hours
before, my partners must have chicken and rack-punch at Vauxhall,
where George fell asleep straightway, and for my sins I must tell
OLD AND NEW DEBTS
42a
Tony Storer what I knew about this Virginian’s amiable family,
especially some of the Bernstein’s antecedents, and the history
of another elderly beauty of the family, a certain Lady Maria, who
was au mieux with the late Prince of Wales. What did I say ?
I protest not half of what I knew, and of course not a tenth part
of what I was going to tell, for who should start out upon us but my
savage, this time quite red in the face ; and in his war-paint The
wretch had been drinking fire-water in the next box !
He cocked his hat, clapped his hand to his sword, asked which of
the gentlemen was it that was maligning his family ? so that I was
obliged to entreat him not to make such a noise, lest he should wake
my friend, Mr. George Selwyn. And I added, ‘ I assure you, sir,
I had no idea that you were near me, and I most sincerely apologize
for giving you pain.’
The Huron took his hand off his tomahawk at this pacific rejoinder,
made a bow not ungraciously, said he could not, of course, ask more
than an apology from a gentleman of my age {Merely monsieur !)y
and, hearing the name of Mr. Selwyn, made another bow to George,
and said he had a letter to him from Lord March, which he had
had the ill-fortune to mislay. George has put him up for the club,
it appears, in conjunction with March, and no doubt these three
lambs will fleece each other. Meanwhile, my pacified savage sat
down with us, and huried the hatchet in another bowl of punch, for
which these gentlemen must calL Heaven help us I ’Tis eleven
o’clock, and here comes Bedson with my gruel !
H. W.
To the Hon^i®. H. S. Conway.
424:
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XLI
bake’s pbogeess
EOPLB were still very busy
in Harry Warrington’s
' time (not that our young
< ?• gentleman took much
heed of the controversy)
in determining the rela-
tive literary merits of the
ancients and the modems ;
and the learned, and the
world with them, indeed,
pretty generally pro-
nounced in favour of the
former. The moderns of
that day are the ancients
of ours, and we speculate
upon them in the present
year of grace, as our
grandchildren, a hun-
dred years hence, will
give their judgement
about us. As for your book-learning, O respectable
ancestors (though, to be sure, you have the mighty Gibbon
with you), I think you will own that you are beaten, and
could point to a couple of professors at Cambridge and
Glasgow who know more Greek than was to be had in your
time in all the universities of Europe, including that
of Athens, if such an one existed. As for science, you
were scarce more advanced than those heathen to w^hom
in literature you owned yourselves inferior. And in
public and private morality ? Which is the better, this
actual year 1858, or its predecessor a century back ?
Gentlemen of Mr. Disraeh’s House of Commons ! has every
one of you his price, as in Walpole’s or New^castle’s time, —
or (and that is the delicate question) have you almost
all of you had it ? Ladies, I do not say that you are a
society of Vestals — ^but the chronicle of a hundred years
since contains such an amownt of scandal, that you may
RAKE’S PROGRESS
425
be thankful you did not live in such dangerous times.
No : on my conscience I believe that men and women
are both better ; not only that the Susannahs are more
numerous, but that the Elders are not nearly so wicked.
Did you ever hear of such books as Clarissa, Tom Jones,
Roderick Random ; paintings by contemporary artists,
of the men and women, the life and society, of their day ?
Suppose we were to describe the doings of such a person
as Mr. Lovelace, or my Lady Bellaston, or that wonderful
‘ Lady of Quality ’ w’ho lent her memoirs to the author of
Peregrine Pickle, How^ the pure and outraged Nineteenth
Century would blush, scream, run out of the room, call
away the young ladies, and order Mr. Mudie never to send
one of that odious author’s books again 1 You are fifty-
eight years old, madam, and it may be that you are too
squeamish, that you cry out before you are hurt, and when
nobody had any intention of offending your ladyship.
Also, it may be that the novelist’s art is injured by the
restraints put upon him, as many an honest, harmless
statue at St. Peter’s and the Vatican is spoilt by the tin
draperies in which ecclesiastical old women have swaddled
the fair limbs of the marble. But in your prudery there is
reason. So there is in the state censorship of the Press.
The page may contain matter dangerous to honos mores.
Out with your scissors, censor, and clip off the prurient
paragraph ! We have nothing for it but to submit. Society,
the despot, has given his imperial decree. We may think
the statue had been seen to greater advantage without
the tin drapery ; we may plead that the moral were better
might we recite the whole fable. Away with him — ^not
a word ! I never saw the pianofortes in the United States
with the frilled muslin trousers on their legs ; but, depend
on it, the muslin covered some of the notes as well as the
mahogany, muffled the music, and stopped the player.
To what does this prelude introduce us ? I am thinking
of Harry Warrington, Esquire, in his lodgings in Bond
Street, London, and of the life which he and many of the
young bucks of fashion led in those times, and how I can
no more take my fair young reader into them, than Lady
Squeams can take her daughter to Cremorne Gardens
on ' an ordinary evening. My dear Miss Diana (Psha !
I know you are eight-and-thirty, although you are so
wonderfully shy, and want to make us beheve you have
P 9 .
426
THE VntGINIAKS
just left off schoolroom dinners and a pinafore), when
your grandfather w^as a young man about town, and a
member of one of the clubs at White’s, and dined at
Pontac’s off the feasts provided by Braund and Lebeck,
and rode to Newmarket with March and Rockingham,
and toasted the best in England with Gilly Williams and
George Selwyn (and didnH understand George’s jokes,
of which, indeed, the flavour has very much evaporated
since the bottling) — ^the old gentleman led a life of which
your noble aunt (author of Legends of the Sgueamses ; or,
Fair Fruits o§ a Family Tree) has not given you the
slightest idea.
It was before your grandmother adopted those serious
view's for which she was distinguished during her last
long residence at Bath, and after Colonel Tibb^t married
Miss Lye, the rich soap-boiler’s heiress, that her ladyship’s
whd oats were sown. When she w'as young, she was as
giddy as the rest of the genteel world. At her house in
Hill Street, she had ten card-tables on Wednesdays and
Sunday evenings, except for a short time wdien Ranelagh
W'as open on Sundays. Every night of her life she gambled
for eight, nine, ten hours. Everybody else in society
did the like. She lost ; she won ; she cheated ; she
pawmed her jewels ; who know's wliat else she was not
ready to pa^vn, so as to find funds to supply her fury
for play ? Wliat was that after-supper duel at the ‘Shake-
speare’s Head ’ in Covent Garden, between your grandfather
and Colonel Tibbalt : where they drew swords and engaged
only in the presence of Sir John Screwby, who was drunk
under the table ? They were interrupted by Mr. John
Pielding’s people, and your grandfather was carried home
to Hill Street wounded in a chair. I tell you those gentle-
men in powder and ruflBles, who turned out the toes of
their buckled pumps so delicately, were terrible fellow's.
Swords were perpetually being drawn ; bottles after
bottles w'ere drunk ; oaths roared unceasingly in conver-
sation ; tavem-draw'ers and w'atchmen w'ere pinked and
maimed ; chairmen belaboured ; citizens insulted by
reeling pleasure-hunters. You have been to Cremorne
with proper ‘ vouchers ’ of course ? Do you remember
our great theatres thirty years ago ? You w'ere too good
to go to a play. Well, you have no idea what the play-
houses were, or what the green boxes were, w'hen Garrick
RAKE’S PROGRESS
427
and lirs. Pritchard were playing before them ! And I,
for my children’s sake, thank that good Actor in his retire-
ment who was the first to banish that shame from the
theatre. No, madam, you are mistaken ; I do 7wt plume
myself on my superior virtue. I do not say you are
naturally better than your ancestress in her wild, rouged,
gambling, flaring, tearing days ; or even than poor Polly
Fogle, who is just taken up for shoplifting, and would
have been hung for it a hundred jears ago. Only, I
am heartily thankful that my temptations are less,
having quite enough to do with those of the present
century.
So, if Harry Warrington rides dowm to Newmarket to
the October meeting, and loses or w^ins his money there ; if
he makes one of a party at the ‘Shakespeare’ or the ‘ Bedford
Head ’ ; if he dines at White’s orduiary, and sits dowm
to macco and lansquenet afterwards ; if he boxes the w^atch,
and makes his appearance at the Roundhouse ; if he turns
out for a short space a wild, dissipated, harum-scarum
young Harry Warrington ; I, knowing the weakness of
human nature, am not going to be surprised ; and, quite
aware of my own shortcomings, don’t intend to be very
savage at my neighbour’s. Mr. Sampson w^as : in his
chapel in Long Acre he whipped Vice tremendously ; gave
Sin no quarter ; out-cursed Blasphemy with superior
anathemas ; knocked Drunkenness down, and trampled on
the prostrate brute w^allowing in the gutter; lagged
out conjugal Infidelity, and pounded her with endless stones
of rhetoric — ^and, after service, came to dinner at the ‘ Star
and Garter’, made a bowl of punch for Harry and his
friends at the ‘ Bedford Head ’, or took a hand at whist at
Mr. Warrington’s lodgings, or my Lord March’s, or wher-
ever there was a supper and good company for him.
I often think, however, in respect of Mr. Warrington’s
doings at this period of his coming to London, that I may
have taken my usual degrading and uncharitable views
of him — ^for, you see, I have not uttered a single word
of virtuous indignation against his conduct, and, if
it was not reprehensible, have certainly judged him most
cruelly. 0 the Truthful, 0 the Beautiful, 0 Modesty,
0 Benevolence, 0 Pudor, O Mores, 0 Blushing Shame,
0 Namby Pamby — each with your respective capital
letters to your honoured names ! 0 Niminy, 0 Piminy 1
428
THE VIRGINIANS
how shall I dare for to go for to say that a young man ever
was a young man V
No doubt, dear young lady, I am calumniating Mr.
Warrington, according to my heartless custom. As a proof,
here is a letter out of the Warrington collection, from Harry
to his mother, in w’hich there is not a single w’ord that
would lead you to suppose he was leading a wild life.
And such a letter from an only son, to a fond and exemplary
parent, we know must be true !
Bond Street, London, October 25tb, 1756.
Honord Madam, — I take up my pen to acknowledge your honored
favor of 10 July, per lAvdy Virginia packet, which has duly come to
hand, forwarded by our Bristol agent, and rejoice to hear that the
prospect of the crops is so good. ’Tis TuUy who says that agri-
culture is the noblest pursuit ; how delightful when that pursuit
is ako prophetable !
Since my last, dated from Tunbridge Wells, one or two insctdence
have occurred of which it is nessasery* I should advise my honored
mother. Our party there broke up end of August : the partridge
shooting commencing. Baroness Bernstein, whose kindness to
me has been most invariable, has been to Bath, her usual winter
resort, and has made me a webome preset of a fifty-pound bill.
I rode back with Bev. Mx. Sampson, whose instruction I find most
voRvitlt, and my cousin. Lady Ma^a, to Castlewood.t I paid a fiying
vimt on the way to my dear kind friends Col, and ^Irs, Lambert,
Ckkhurst House, who send my honored mother their most affec-
tionate remembrances. The youngest Miss Lambert, I grieve to
say, was deUkate ; and her parents in some anxiety.
At Castlewood I lament to state my stay was short, owing to
a quarrel with my cousin William. He is a young man of violent
passions and alas ! addicted to liquor, when he has no controul
over them. In a trifling dispute about a horse, high words arose
between us, and he aymed a blow at me or its equivulent — which
my Grandfathers my honored mothers child could not brook. I
rejoyned, and feld him to the ground, whents he was carried almost
sen^is to bed. I sent to enquire after his health in the morning :
but having no further news of him, came away to London where
I have been ever since with brief intavles of absence.
Knowing you would wish me to see my dear Grandfathers Uni-
versity of Cambridge, I rode thither lately in company with some
friends, passing through some part of Harts, and lying at the famous
* This word has been much operated upon with the penknife, but
is left aic, no doubt to the writer’s satisfaction.
t Could Parson Sampson have been dictating the above remarks
to Mr. Warrington ?
HAERY IS PRESEIsTED TO A OBEAT PERSONAGE
RAKE’S PROGRESS
431
bed of Ware. The October meeting was just begun at Cambridge
when I went. I saw the students in their govmds and capps, and
rode over to the famous Newmarket Heath, where there happened
to be some races — my friend Lord Marchs horse Man’owbones by
Cleaver coming off winner of a large steak It was an amusing
day — the jockeys, horses, &c., very different to our poor races at
home — the betting awful — the richest noblemen here mix with the jox,
and bett all round, Cambridge pleased me: especially King’s
College Chapel, of a rich but elegant Gothick.
I have been out into the world, and am made member of the Gub
at White’s, where I meet gentlemen of the first fashion. My lords
Rockingham, Carlisle, Orford, Bolingbroke, Coventry are of my
friends, introduced to me by my Lord March, of whom I have often
wrote before. Lady Coventry is a fine woman, but thinn. Every
lady paints here, old and young ; so, if you and Mountain and
Fanny wish to be in fashion, I must send you out some rooge-pots :
everybody plays — eight, ten, card-tables at every house on every
receiving night. I am sorry to say all do not play fair, and some
do not pay fair. ' I have been obliged to sit down, and do as Borne does,
and have actually seen ladies whom I could name take my counters
from before my face !
One day, his regiment the 20th, being paraded in St. James’s
Park, a friend of mine, Mr. WoKe, did me the honour to present me
to his royal highness the captain-general, who was most gracious ;
a fat jolly prince, if I may speak so without disrespect, reminding
me in his manner of that unhappy General Braddock, whom we
knew -to our sorrow last year. When he heard my name, and how
dearest George had served and fallen in Braddock’s unfortunate
campaign, he talked a great d^l with me ; asked why a young
fellow like me did not serve too ; why I did not go to the King of
Prussia, who was a great general, and see a campaign or two ; and
whether that would not be better than dawdling about at routs and
card-parties in London ? I said, I would like to go with all my
heart, but was an only son now, on leave from my mother, and
belonged to our estate in Virginia, His royal highness said,
Mr. Braddock had wrote home accounts of Mrs. Esmond’s loyalty,
and that he would gladly serve me. Mr. WoKe and I have waited
on him since, at his royal highness’s house in Pall Mall. The
latter, who is still quite a young man, made the Scots campaign
with his highness, whom Mr. Dempster loves so much at home.
To be sure, he was too severe : if anything can be too severe against
rebels in arms.
Mr. Draper has had half the Stock, my late papa’s property,
transferred to my name. Until there can be no doubt of that
painful loss in our family which I would give my right hand to
replace, the remaining Stock must remain in the trustees’ name
in behalf of him who inherited it. Ah, dear mother ! There is no
day, scarce any hour, when I don’t think of him. I wish he were
by me often. I feel like as if I was better when I am thinking of him.
432 THE VIRGINIANS
and would like, for the honour of my family, that he was representing
of it here instead of.
Honored Madam,
Your dutiful and affectionate Son,
Henby Esmond Wabbington.
PS. — I am like your sex, who always, they say, put their chief
news in a poscrip, I had something to tell you atout a person to
whom my heart is engaged. I shall write more about it, which
there is no hurry, ^fice she is a nobleman’s daughter, & her
family as good as our ovm,
Clabgis Stbeet, London, October 23rd, 1756.
I think, my good ^ter, we have been all our lives a little more
than kin and less thsm kind, to use the words of a poet whom your
dear father loved dearly. When you were bom in our Western
Principaiitie, my moth^ was not as old as Isaac’s ; but even then
I was much more than old enough to be yours. And though she
gave you all couM leave or give, including the little pmiiion of
love that ought to have been my share, yet, if we can have goodwHl
for one another, we may learn to do without affection : and some
little kindne^ you owe me, for your son’s sake as well as your father’s,
whom I loved and admired more than any man I think ever I knew
in this world : he was greater than almost all, though he made no
ikoyse in it. I have seen very many who have, and, believe me,
have found but few with such good heads and good harts as
Mr. Esmond.
Had we been better acquainted, I might have given you some
advice regarding your young gentleman’s introduction to Europe,
which you would have taken or not, as people do in this world.
At least you would have sed afterwards, * What she counselled me
was right, and had Harry done as Madam Beatais: wisht, it had
been better for him.’ My good sist^, it was not for you to know,
or for me to whom you never wrote to tell you, but your boy in
coming to England and Castlewood found but ill friends there :
except one, an old aunt, of whom all kind of evil hath been spoken
and sed these fifty years past — and not without cawse too, perhaps.
Now, I must tell Harry’s mother what will doubtless scarce
astonish her, that almost everybody who knows him loves him.
He is prudent of his tongue, generous of his money, as bold as a
iyon, with an imperious domineering way that sets well upon him ;
you know whether he is handsome or not : my dear, I like him none
the less for not being over witty or wise, and never cared for your
s^Uh^-Tharms-sSxe) gentlemen, who are so much more clever
than their neighbours. Your father’s great friend, Mr. Addison,
seemed to me but a supercilious prig, and his follower, Sir Dick
Steele, was not pleasant in his cupps, nor out of ’em. And [revenons
d Iny) ycmr Master Harry will certainly not bum the river up with
his wits. Of book learning he is as ignorant as any lord in England,
EAKE’S PROGRESS
433
and for this I hold him none the worse. If Heaven have not given
him a turn that way, ’tis of no use trying to bend him.
Considering the place he is to hold in his own colony when he
returns, and the stock he comes from, let me tell you, that he hath
not means enough allowed him to support his station, and is likely
to make the more de'pmce from the narrowness of his income —
from sheer despair breaking out of all bounds, and becoming extra-
vagant, which is not his turn. But he likes to live as well as the rest
of his company, and, between ourselves, has fell into some of the
finist and most rakish in England. He thinks ’tis for the honour of
the family not to go back, and many a time calls for ortolans and
champaign when he would as leaf dine with a stake and a mugg
of beer. And in this kind of spirit I have no doubt from what he
hath told me in his talk (which is very naif, as the French say),
that his mamma hath encouraged him in his high opinion of himself.
We women like our belongings to have it, however little we love to
pay the cost. Will you have your ladd make a figar in London ?
Trebble his allowance at the very least, and his Aunt Bernstein (with
his honored mamma’s permission) will add a little more on to
whatever summ you give him. Otherwise he will be spending the
little capital I learn he has in this country, which, when a ladd
once begins to mmg&r, there is very soon an end to the loaf. Please
God, I shall be able to leave Henry Esmond’s grandson something
at my death; but my savings are small, and the pension with
which my gracious sovereign hath endowed me dies with me.
As for feu M. de Bernstein, he left only debt at his decease ; the
officers of his Majesty’s Electoral Court of Hannover are but
scantily paid.
A lady who is at present very high in his Majesty’s confidence
hath taken a great phancy to your ladd, and will take an early
occasion to bring him to the sovereign’s favorable notice. His
royal highness the duke he hath seen. If live in America he
must, why should not Mr. Esmond Warrington return as Governor
of Virginia, and with a title to his name ? That is what I hope
for him.
Meanwhile, I must be candid with you, and tell you I fear he
hath entangled himself here in a very silly engagement. Even to
marry an old woman for money is scarce pardonable — the game
m volant gueres la chandeUe — Mr. Bernstein, when alive, more than
once assured me of this fact, and I believe him, poor gentleman !
But to engage yourself to an old woman without money, and to
marry her merely because you have promised her, this seems to me
a foUie which only very young lads fall into, and I fear Mr. War-
rington is one. How, or for what consideration, I know not, but
my niece Maria Esmond hath escamote a promise from Harry. He
knows nothing of her antecedens, which I do. She hath laid herself
out for twenty husbands these twenty years past. I care not how
she hath got the promise from him. ’Tis a sinn and a shame that
a woman more than forty years old should surprize the honour of
434
THE VIROINIANS
a child like that, and hold him to his word. She is not the woman
she pretends to be. A horse-jockey (he saith) cannot take him
in — but a woman !
I write this news to you advisedly, displeasant as it must be.
Perhaps ’twill bring you to England : but I would be very cautious,
above ail, very gentle, for the bitt will instantly make his high spirit
restive. I fear the property is entailed, so that threats of cutting
him off from it will not move Maria. Otherwise I kno'w her to
be so mercenary that (though she really hath a great phancy for
this handsome ladd) without money she would not hear of him.
All I could, and more than I ought, 1 have done to prevent the match.
What and more I will not say in writing ; but that I am, for Henry
Esmond’s sake, his grandson’s sincerest friend, and, madam.
Your faithful sister and servant,
Bbateix Baboness db Bernstein.
To Mrs. Esmond Warrington, of Castlewood, in Virginia.
On the back of this letter is written, in Madam Esmond’s
hand : * My sister Bernstein’s letter, received with Henry’s
December 24 : on receipt of which it was determined my
son should instantly go home.’
CHAPTER XLII
lOBTUNATUS NIMIUM
HOUGH Harry War-
rington persisted in
his determination to
keep that dismal
promise which his
cousin had extracted
from him, we trust
no benevolent reader
will think so ill of
■ him as to suppose
that the engagement
was to the young
fellow’s taste, and
that he would not be
heartily glad to be
rid of it. Very likely the beating administered to poor
Will was to this end ; and Harry may have thought,
.b^ORTUNATUS OTMIUM
435
^ A boxing-matcli between us is sure to bring on a quarrel
with the family ; in the quarrel with the family, Maria
may take her brother’s side. I, of course, will make no
retraction or apology. Will, in that case, may call me
to account, when I know w’hich is the better man. In
the midst of the feud, the agreement may come to an
end, and I may be a free man once more.’
So honest Harry laid his train, and fired it ; but, the
explosion over, no harm was found to be done, except
that William Esmond’s nose was swollen, and his eye
black for a week. He did not send a challenge to his cousin,
Harry Warrington ; and, in consequence, neither killed
Harry nor was killed by him. Will was knocked down,
and he got up again. How^ many men of sense would
do the same, could they get their little account settled
in a private place, with nobody to tell how the score was
paid ! Maria by no means took her family’s side in the
quarrel, but declared for her cousin, as did my lord, when
advised of the disturbance. Will had struck the first
blow, Lord Castlewood said, by the chaplain’s showing.
It was not the first or the tenth time he had been found
quarrelling in his cups. Mr. Warrington only shovred
a proper spirit in resenting the injury, and it was for Will,
not for Harry, to ask pardon.
Harry said he would accept no apology as long as his
horse was not returned or his bet paid. This chronicler
has not been able to find out, from any of the papers which
have come under his view, how’* that affair of the bet was
finally arranged ; but ’tis certain the cousins presently
met in the houses of various friends, and without mauling
each other.
Maria’s elder brother had been at first quite willing that
his sister, who had remained unmarried for so many years,
and on the train of whose robe, in her long course over
the path of life, so many briars, so much mud, so many
rents and stains had naturally gathered, should marry with
any bridegroom who presented himself, and if with a gentle-
man from Virginia so much the better. She would retire
to his wigwam in the forest, and there be disposed of.
In the natural course of things, Harry would survive his
elderly bride, and might console himself or not, as he
preferred, after her departure.
But after an interview with Aunt Bernstein, which his
436
THE VIEGINIANS
lordship had on his coming to London, he changed his
opinion : and even went so far as to try and dissuade
Maria from the match : and to profess a pity for the young
fellow who was to be made to undergo a life of misery
on account of a silly promise given at one-and-twenty.
Misery, indeed ! Maria was at a loss to know why he
was to be miserable. Pity, forsooth ! My lord at Castle-
wood had thought it was no pity at all. Maria knew
what pity meant. Her brother had been with Aunt Bern-
stein : Aunt Bernstein had offered money to break this
match off. She understood what my lord meant, but
Mr. Warrington was a man of honour, and she could trust
him. Away, upon this, walks my lord to White’s, or to
whatever haunts he frequented. It is probable that his
sister had guessed too accurately what the nature of his
conversation with Madame Bernstein had been.
‘ And so,’ thinks he, ‘ the end of my virtue is likely to
be that the Mohock will fall a prey to others, and that
there is no earthly use in my sparing him. “ Q^em Deus
— ^what was the schoolmaster’s adage ? If I don’t
have him, somebody else will, that is clear. My brother
has had a slice ; my dear sister wants to swallow the whole
of him bodily. Here have I been at home respecting his
youth and innocence forsooth, declining to play beyond
the value of a sixpence, and acting guardian and Mentor
to him. Why, I am but a fool to fatten a goose for other
people to feed off I Not many a good action have I done
in this life, and here is tin® one, that serves to benefit
whom ? — other folks. Talk of remorse ! By all the fires
and furies, the remorse I have is for things I haven’t done
and might have done f Why did I spare Lucretia ? She
hated me ever after, and her husband went the way for
which he was predestined. Why have I let this lad off ! —
that March ai^ the r^t, who don’t want him, may pluck
him ! And I have a bad repute ; and I am the man people
point at, and call the wicked lord, and against whom
women warn their sons ! Pardi, I am not a penny worse,
only a great deal more unlucky than my neighbours, and
’tis only my cursed weakness that has been my greatest
enemy ! ’ Here, manifestly, in setting down a speech which
a gentleman oxilytiumght, a chronicler overdraws his account
with the patient reader, who has a right not to accept
this draft on his credulity. But have not livy, and
FORTIMATUS NIMIUM
437
Thucydides, and a score more of historians, made speeches
for their heroes, which we know the latter never thought
of delivering ? How much more may we then, knowing
my Lord Castlewood’s character so intimately as we do,
declare what was passing in his mind, and transcribe his
thoughts on this paper ? What ? a whole pack of the
w'olves are on the hunt after this lamb, and wull make
a meal of him presently, and one hungry old hunter is
to stand by, and not have a single cutlet ? Who has not
admired that noble speech of my Lord Clive, when re-
proached on his return from India with making rather too
free with jaghires, lakhs, gold mohurs, diamonds, pearls, and
what not : " Upon my life,’ said the hero of Plassy, ‘ when
I think of my opportunities, I am surprised I took so little ! ’
To tell disagreeable stories of a gentleman, until one is
in a manner forced to impart them, is always painful to
a feeling mind. Hence, though I have known, before the
very first page of this history was written, what sort of
a person my Lord Castlewood was, and in what esteem
he was held by his contemporaries ; I have kept back
much that was unpleasant about him, only allowing the
candid reader to perceive that he was a nobleman who
ought not to be at all of our liking. It is true that my
Lord March, and other gentlemen of whom he complained,
would have thought no more of betting with Mr. War-
rington for his last shilling, and taking their winnings,
than they would scruple to pick the bones of a chicken ;
that they would take any advantage of the game, or their
superior skill in it, of the race, and their private knowledge
of the horses engaged ; in so far, they followed the practice
of all gentlemen : but when they played, they played fair ;
and when they lost, they paid.
Now Madame Bernstein w^as loath to tell her Virginian
nephew all she knew to his family’s discredit ; she was even
touched by my lord’s forbearance in regard to Harry on
his first arrival in Europe ; and pleased with his lordship’s
compliance with her wishes in this particular. But in the
conversation which she had with her nephew Castlewood
regarding Maria’s designs on Harry, he had spoken his'
mind out with his usual cynicism, voted himself a fool for
having spared a lad whom no sparing would eventually
keep from ruin ; pointed out Mr. Harry’s undeniable
extravagances and spendthrift associates, his nights at faro
438
THE VIBOINIANS
and hazard, and his rides to Newmarket, and asked why
he alone should keep his hands from the young fellow ?
In vain Madame Bernstein pleaded that Harry was poor.
Bah ! he was heir to a principality which ought to have
been his, Castlewood’s, and might have set up their ruined
family. (Indeed Madame Bernstein thought Mr. Warring-
ton’s Virginia property much greater than it was.) Were
there not money-lenders in the town who would give him
money on post-obits in plenty ? Castlew^ood knew as much
to his cost ; he had applied to them in his father’s life-
time, and the cursed crew had eaten up two-thirds of his
miserable income. He spoke with such desperate candour
and ill humour, that Madame Bernstein began to be alarmed
for her favourite, and determined to caution him at the
first opportunity.
That evening she began to pen a billet to Mr. Warrington ;
but ail her life long she was alow with her pen, and disliked
using it. ‘ I never knew any good come of writing more
than jour or business,’ she used to say. ‘ What is the
use of writing ill, w’hen there are so many clever people
who can do it well ? and even then it were best left alone.’
So she sent one of her men to Mr. Harry’s lodging, bidding
him come and drink a dish of tea with her next day, w'hen
she proposed to warn him.
But the next morning she was indisposed, and could not
receive Mr. Harry when he came : and she kept her chamber
for a couple of days, and the next day there was a great
engagement ; and the next day Mr. Harry was ofi on some
expedition of his own. In the whirl of London life, what
man sees his neighbour, what brother his sister, what
schoolfellow his old friend ? Ever so many days passed
before Mr. Warrington and his aunt had that confidential
conversation which the latter desired.
She began by scolding him mildly about his extravagance
and madcap frolics (though, in truth, she w^as charmed
with him for both) — ^he replied that young men will be
young men, and that it was in dutifully waiting in attend-
ance on his aunt, he had made the acquaintance with whom
he mostly lived at present. She then, with some prelude,
b^an to warn him regarding his cousin, Lord Castlewood ;
on which he broke into a bitter laugh, and said the good-
natured world had told him plenty about Lord Castlewood
already. ‘ To say of a man of his lordship’s rank, or of
FORXUNATUS NIMITOI
439
any gentleman, “ Don’t play with him,” is more than I like
to do,’ continued the lady ; ‘ but ’
‘ Oh, you may say on, aunt ! ’ said Harry, with something
like an imprecation on his lips.
‘ And have you played with your cousin already ? ’ asked
the young man’s worldly old monitress.
‘ And lost and won, madam I ’ answers Harry, gallantly.
‘ It don’t become me to say which. If we have a bout
with a neighbour in Virginia, a bottle, or a pack of cards,
or a quarrel, we don’t go home and tell our mothers.
I mean no offence, aunt ! ’ And, blushing, the handsome
young fellow went up and kissed the old lady. He looked
very brave and brilliant, with his rich lace, his fair face
and hair, his jfine new suit of velvet and gold. On taking
leave of his aunt he gave his usual sumptuous benefactions
to her servants, who crowded round him. It w^as a rainy
winter day, and my gentleman, to save his fine silk stockings,
must come in a chair. ‘ To White’s ! ’ he called out to
the chairmen, and away they carried him to the place
where he passed a great deal of his time.
Our Virginian’s friends might have wished that he had
been a less sedulous frequenter of that house of entertain-
ment I but so much may be said in favour of Mr. Warrington
that, having engaged in play, he fought his battle like
a hero. He was not flustered by good luck, and perfectly
calm when the chances went against him. If Fortune is
proverbially fickle to men at play, how many men are
fickle to Fortune, run away frightened from her advances ;
and desert her who, perhaps, had never thought of leaving
them but for their cowardice. ‘ By George, Mr. Warring-
ton,’ said Mr. Selwyn, w^aking up in a rare fit of enthusiasm ;
* you deserve to win ! You treat your luck as a gentleman
should, and as long as she remains with you, behave to
her with the most perfect politeness. Si celeres quatit
Jennas — ^you know the rest — ^no ? Well, you are not much
the w'orse off — ^you will call her ladyship’s coach, and make
her a bow at the step. Look at Lord Castlewood yonder,
passing the box. Did you ever hear a fellow curse and
swear so at losing five or six pieces ? She must be a jade
indeed, if she long give her favours to such a niggardly
canaille as that ! ’
‘ We don’t consider our family canaille, sir,’ says Mr. War-
rington, ‘ and my Lord Castlewood is one of them.’
440
THE vmGmims
‘ I forgot. I forgot, and ask your pardon ! And I make
you my compliment upon my lord, and Mr. Will Esmond,
his brother,’ says Harry’s neighbour at the hazard-table,
‘ The box is with me. Five’s the main I Deuce Ace ! my
usual luck. Virtvie mea me involvo ! ’ and he sinks back
in his chair.
Whether it w^as upon this occasion of taking the box,
that Mr. Harry threw" the fifteen mains mentioned in one
of those other letters of Mr. Walpole’s, which have not
come into his present learned editor’s hands, I know not ;
but certain it is, that on liis first appearance at White’s,
Harry had five or six evenings of prodigious good luck,
and seemed more than ever the Fortunate Youth. The
five hundred pounds withdrawn from his patrimonial in-
heritance had multiplied into thousands. He bought fine
clothes, purchased fine horses, gave grand entertainments,
made handsome presents, lived as if he had been as rich
as Sir James Low'ther, or his grace of Bedford, and yet
the five thousand pounds never seemed to diminish. No
w'onder that he gave where giving was so easy : no wonder
that he was generous with Fortunatus’s purse in his pocket.
I say no wonder tl^t he gave, for such was his nature.
Other Fortunati tie up the endl^ purse, drink small beer,
and go to bed with a tallow candle.
Dming this vein of his luck, w"hat must Mr. Harry do,
but find out from Lady Maria what her ladyship’s debts
were, and pay them ofi to the last shilling. Her step-
mother and half-sister, who did not love her, he treated
to all sorts of magnificent presents. ‘ Had you not better
get yourself arrested. Will ? ’ my lord sardonically said to
his brother. ‘ Although you bit him in that affair of the
horse, the Mohock will certainly take you out of pawn.’
It was then that Mr. William felt a true remorse, though
not of that humble kind which sent the repentant Prodigal
to his knees. ‘ Confound it,’ he groaned, ‘ to think that
I have let this fellow slip for such a little matter as forty
pound ! Why, he was good for a thousand at least.’
As for Maria, that generous creature accepted the good
Fortune sent her with a grateful heart ; and was ready
to accept as much more as you pleased. Having paid off
her debts to her various milliners, tradesmen and purveyors,
she forthwith proceeded to contract new ones. Mrs. Betty,
her ladyship’s maid, went round informing the tradespeople
FORTUNATUS NIMIUM
441
that her mistress was about to contract a matrimonial
alliance with a young gentleman of immense fortune ; so
that they might give my lady credit to any amount.
Having heard the same story twice or thrice before, the
tradesfolk might not give it entire credit, but their bills
were paid : even to Mrs. Pincott, of Kensington, my lady
showed no rancour, and affably ordered fresh supplies from
her : and when she drove about from the mercer to the
toy-shop, and from the toy-shop to the jeweller, in a coach,
with her maid and Mr. Warrington inside, they thought
her a fortunate woman indeed, to have secured the For-
tunate Youth, though they might w^onder at the taste of
this latter in having selected so elderly a beauty. Mr. Sparks,
of Tavistock Street, Co vent Garden, took the liberty of
waiting upon Mr. Warrington at his lodgings in Bond
Street, vdth the pearl necldace and the gold etwee which
he had bought in Lady Maria’s company the day before ;
and asking whether he. Sparks, should leave them at his
honour’s lodging, or send them to her ladyship with his
honour’s compliments ? Harry added a ring out of the
stock which the jeweller happened to bring with him, to
the necklace and the etwee; and sumptuously bidding
that individual to send him in the bill, took a majestic
leave of Mr. Sparks, who retired, bowing even to Gumbo,
as he quitted his honour’s presence.
Nor did his bounties end here. Ere many days the
pleased young fellow drove up in his phaeton to Mr. Sparks’s
shop, and took a couple of trinkets for two young ladies,
whose parents had been kind to him, and for whom he
entertained a sincere regard. ‘ Ah I ’ thought he, ‘ how
I wish I had my poor George’s wit, and genius for poetry !
I would send these presents with pretty verses to Hetty
and Theo. I am sure, if goodwill and real regard could
make a poet of me, I should have no difficulty in finding
rhymes.’ And so he called in Parson Sampson, and they
concocted a billet together.
442
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XLIII
m WHICH HAEEY FLIES HIGH
o Mr. Bkirry Warrington, of Virginia,
had his lodgings in Bond Street,
London, England, and lived upon
the fat of the land, and drank
bumpers of the b^t wine thereof-
His title of Fortunate Youth was
pretty generally recognized. Being
young, wealthy, good-looking, and
fortunate, the fashionable world
took him by the hand and made
him welcome.^ Harry was liked
because he was likeable ; because
he was rich, handsome, jovial,
well-born, well-bred, brave ; be-
cause, with joUy topers, he liked
a jolly song and a bottle ; because,
with genSemen sportsmen, he loved any game that was afoot
or ahorseback ; because, with ladies, he had a modest blush-
ing timidity which rendered the l€wi interesting ; because, to
those humbler than himself in degree he was always mag-
nificently liberal, and anxious to spare annoyance. Our
Virginijm was very grand, and high and mighty, to be sure ;
but, in those times, when the distinction of ranks yet ob-
tained, to be high and distant with his inferiors brought
no unpopularity to a gentleman. Remember that, in those
days, the secretary of state always knelt when he went to
the king with his dispatches of a morning, and the under-
secretary never dared to sit dowm in his chief’s presence.
If I were secretary of state (and such there have been
amongst men of letters since Addison’s days) I should not
like to kneel when I went in to my audience with my
dispatch-box. If I were under-secretary, I should not
like to have to stand, w’-hilst the Right Honourable Ben-
jamin or the Right Honourable Sir Edward looked over
the papers. But there is a modus in rehus : there are
certain lines which must he drawn : and I am only half
HARRY PLIES HIGH
443
pleased, for my part, when Bob Bowstreet, whose connexion
with letters is through Policemen X and Y, and Tom
Garbage, who is an esteemed contributor to the Kennel
Miscellany^ propose to join fellowship as brother literary
men, slap me on the back, and call me old boy, or by my
Christian name.
As much pleasure as the town could give in the winter
season of 1756-7, Mr. Warrington had for the asking.
There w^ere operas for him, in which he took but moderate
delight. (A prodigious deal of satire was brought to bear
against these Italian operas, and they were assailed for
being foolish, Popish, unmanly, unmeaning ; but people
went, nevertheless. ) There were the theatres, with Mr. Gar-
rick and Mrs. Pritchard at one house, and Mrs. Clive at
another. There were masquerades and ridottos, frequented
by all the fine society : there were their lordships and
ladyships’ owm private drums and assemblies, which began
and ended with cards, and which Mr. Warrington did not
like so well as White’s, because the play there was neither
so high nor so fair as at the club-table.
One day his kinsman, Lord Castlewood, took him to
Court, and presented Harry to His Majesty, who was now
come to town from Kensington. But that gracious sove-
reign either did not like Harry’s introducer, or had other
reasons for being sulky. His Majesty only said, ^ Oh, heard
of you from Lady Yarmouth. The Earl of Castlewood ’
(turning to his lordship, and speaking in Grerman) ‘ shall
teU him that he plays too much ! ’ And so saying, the
Defender of the Paith turned his royal back.
Lord Castlewood shrank back quite frightened at this
cold reception of his august master.
‘ What does he say ? ’ asked Harry.
‘ His Majesty thirds they play too high at White’s, and
is displeased,’ whispered the nobleman.
‘ If he does not want us, we had better not come again,
that is all,’ said Harry, simply. ‘ I never, somehow, con-
sidered that German feUow a real King of England.’
‘ Hush ! for Heaven’s sake, hold your confounded colonial
tongue ! ’ cries out my lord. ‘ Don’t you see the walls
here have ears ? ’
^ And what then ? ’ asks Mr. Warrington. ‘ Why, look
at the people ! Hang me if it is not quite a curiosity t
They were all shaking hands with me, and bomng to me.
444
tHE VIROINIANS
and flattering me, just now ; and at present they avoid
me as if I were the plague.^
‘ Shake hands, nephew/ said a broad-faced, broad-
shouldered gentleman in a scarlet-laced waistcoat, and a
great old-fashioned mg, ‘ I heard what you said, I have
ears like the wall, look you. And, now, if other people
show you the cold shoulder, I’ll give you my hand ; ’ and,
so saying, the gentleman put out a great brown hand,
with which he grasped Harry’s. ‘ Something of my brother
about your eyes and face. Though, I suppose, in your
island you grow more wiry and thin like. I am thine
uncle, child. My name is Sir Miles Warrington. My lord
knows me well enough.’
My lord looked very frightened and yellow. ‘ Yes, my
dear Hany* This is your paternal uncle, Sir Miles War-
rington/
‘ Might as well have come to see us in Norfolk, as dangle
about playing the fool at Tunl^idge Wells, Mr. Warrington,
or Mr. Esmond, which do you call yourself ? ’ said the
baronet. *The old lady calls herself Madam Esmond,
don’t she ? ’
‘ My mother is not ashamed of her father’s name, nor
am I, uncle,’ said Mr. Harry, rather proudly.
‘ Well said, lad I Come home and eat a bit of mutton
with Lady Warrington, at three, in Hill Street, — ^that is,
if you can do without your White’s kickshaw^s. You need
not look frightened, my Lord Gastlewood ! I shall tell no
tal^ out of school.’
‘ I — am sure Sir Miles Warrington will act as a gentle-
man ! ’ ^ys my lord, in much perturbation.
* Belike he will,’ growled the baronet, turning on his
heel. ‘ And thou wilt come, young man, at three ; and
mind, good roast mutton waits for nobody. Thou hast
a great look of thy father. Lord bless us, how we used
to beat each other i He was smaller than me, and in course
younger ; but many a time he had the best of it. Take
it he was henpecked, when he married, and Madam Esmond
took the spirit out of him, when she got him in her island.
Virginia is an island. Ain’t it an island ? ’
Harry laughed, and said * No ! ’ And the jolly baronet,
going off, said, ‘ Well, island or not, thou must come and
tell all about it to my lady. She^ll know whether ’tis an
island or not.’
HAERY FLIES HIGH
445
‘My dear Mr. Warrington,’ said my lord, with an
appealing look, ‘ I need not tell you that, in this great
city, every man has enemies, and that there is a great,
great deal of detraction and scandal. I never spoke to
you about Sir Miles Warrington, precisely because I did
know him, and because we have had differences together.
Should he permit himself remarks to my disparagement,
you will receive them cum grano, and remember that it is
from an enemy they come.’ And the pair walked out of
the king’s apartments and into St. James’s Street. Harry
found the news of his cold reception at Court had already
preceded him to White’s. The king had turned his back
upon him. The king was jealous of Harry’s favour with
the favourite. Harry was au mieux with Lady Yarmouth.
A score of gentlemen wished him a compliment upon his
conquest. Before night it was a settled matter that
this was amongst the other victories of the Fortunate
Youth.
Sir Miles told his wife and Harry as much, when the
young man appeared at the appointed hour at the baronet’s
dinner-table, and he rallied Harry in his simple rustic
fashion. The lady, at first, a grand and stately personage,
told Harry, on their further acquaintance, that the reputa-
tion which the world had made for him was so bad, that
at first she had given him but a frigid welcome. With
the young ladies, Sir Miles’s daughters, it was, ‘ How d’ye
do, cousin ? ’ and ‘ No, thank you, cousin,’ and a number
of prim curtsies to the Virginian, as they greeted him and
took leave of him. The little boy, the heir of the house,
dined at table, under the care of his governor ; and,
having his glass of port by papa after dinner, gave a loose
to his innocent tongue, and asked many questions of his
cousin. At last the innocent youth said, after looking
hard in Harry’s face, ‘ Are you wicked, Cousin Harry ?
You don’t look very wicked.’
‘ My dear Master Miles ? ’ expostulates the tutor, turning
very red.
‘ But you know you said he was wicked I ’ cried the child.
‘ We are all miserable sinners, Miley,’ explains papa.
‘ Haven’t you heard the clergyman say so every Sunday ? ’
‘ Yes, but not so very wicked as Cousin Harry. it
true that you gamble, cousin, and drink all night with
wicked men, and frequent the company of wicked women ?
446
THE VIRGINIANS
You know you said so, Mr. Walker — ^and mamma said so,
too, that L^y Yarmouth was a \^icked woman.’
‘ And you are a little pitcher,’ cries papa ; ‘ and my
wife, nephew Harry, is a stanch Jacobite — ^you won’t like
her the worse for that. Take Miles to his sisters, Mr. Walker,
and Topsham shall give thee a ride in the park, child, on
thy little horse.’ The idea of the little horse consoled
Master Miles ; for when his father ordered him away to
his sisters, he had begun to cry bitterly, bawling out that
he would far rather stay ^with his wicked cousin.
‘ They have made you a sad reputation among ’em,
nephew’ ! ’ says the jolly baronet. ‘ My wife, you must
know, of late years, and since the death of my poor eldest
son, has taken to, — ^to, hum ! — ^to Tottenham Court Road
and Mr. Whitfield’s preaching ; and we have had one
Ward about the house, a friend of Mr. Walker’s yonder,
who has recounted sad stori^ about you and your brother
at home.’
‘About me, Sir Miles, as much as he pleases,’ cries
Harry, warm with port : ‘ but I’ll break any man’s bones,
who dares say a word against my brother ! Why, sir, that
fellow was not fit to buckle my dear George’s shoe ; and
if I find him repeating at home what he dared to say in
our house in Virginia, I promise him a second caning.’
‘ You seem to stand up for your friends, nephew Harry,’
says the baronet. ‘Fill thy glass, lad. Thou art not as
bad as thou hast been paint^. I always told my lady
so. I drink Madam Esmond Warrington’s health, of Vir-
ginia, and will have a full bumper for that toast.’
Harry, as in duty bound, emptied his glass, filled again,
and drank Lady Warrington and Master Miles.
‘ Thou woiil<^t be heir to four thousand acres in Norfolk,
did he die, though,’ said the baronet.
‘ God forbid, sir, and be praised that I have acres enough
in Virginia of my own I ’ says Mr. Warrington. He went
up presently and took a dish of coffee with Lady Warring-
ton : he talked to the young ladies of the house. He was
quite easy, pleasant, and natural. There was one of them
somewhat like Fanny Mountain, and this young lady
became his special favourite. When he went away, they
all agreed their wicked cousin was not near so wicked as
they had imagined him to be : at any rate, my lady 'had
strong hopes of rescuing him from the pit. She sent him
HARRY FLIES HIGH
447
a good book that evening, whilst Mr. Harry was at White’s ;
with a pretty note, praying that Law’s Call might be of
service to him : and, this dispatched, she and her daughters
w'ent off to a rout at the house of a minister’s lady. But
Harry, before he went to White’s, had driven to his friend
Mr. Sparks, in Tavistock Street, and purchased more
trinkets for his female cousins — ‘ from their aunt in Vir-
ginia,’ he said. You see, he was full of kindness : he
kindled and warmed with prosperity. There are men on
whom wealth hath no such fortunate influence. It hardens
base hearts : it makes those who were mean and servile,
mean and proud. If it should please the gods to try me
with ten thousand a year, I will, of course, meekly submit
myself to their decrees, but I will pray them to give me
strength enough to bear the trial. All the girls in Hill
Street were delighted at getting the presents from Aunt War-
rington in Virginia, and addressed a collective note, which
must have astonished that good lady when she received it
in spring-time, when she and Mountain and Fanny were
on a visit to grim, deserted Castlewood, when the snows
had cleared away, and a thousand peach-trees flushed with
blossoms. ‘ Poor boy I ’ the mother thought. ‘ This is
some present he gave his cousins in my name, in the time
df his prosperity — ^nay, of his extravagance and folly. How
quickly his wealth has passed away ! But he ever had
a kind heart for the poor, Mountain; and we must not
forget him in his need. It behoves us to be more than
ever careful of our own expenses, my good people ! ’ And
so I dare say they warmed themselves by one log, and ate
of one dish, and worked by one candle. And the widow’s
servants, whom the good soul began to pinch more and
more, I fear, lied, stole, and cheated more and more : and
what was saved in one way, was stole in another.
One afternoon, Mr. Harry sat in his Bond Street lodgings,
arrayed in his dressing-gown, sipping his chocolate, sur-
rounded by luxury, encased in satin, and yet enveloped
in care. A few weeks previously, w^hen the luck was with
him, and he was scattering his benefactions to and fro, he
had royally told Parson Sampson to get together a list of
his debts, which he, Mr. Warrington, would pay. Accord-
ingly, Sampson had gone to work, and had got together
a list, not of all his debts, — ^no man ever does set down
all, — but such a catalogue as he thought sufficient to bring
448
THE VIRGINIANS
in to Mr. Warrington, at whose breakfast-table the divine
had humbly waited until his honour should choose to
attend it.
Harry appeared at length, very pale and languid, in
curl-papers, had scarce any appetite for his breakfast ;
and the chaplain, fumbling with his schedule in his pocket,
humbly asked if liis patron had had a bad night ? Yes,
his honour had had a very bad night. He had been
brought home from White’s by two chairmen at five o’clock
in tlS> morning ; had caught a confounded cold, for one
of the window’s of the chair would not shut, and the rain
and snow came in ; finally, was in such a bad humour,
that all poor Sampson’s quirks and jokes could scarcely
extort a smile from him.
At last, to be sure, Mr. Warrington burst into a loud
laugh. It WB& when the poor chaplain, after a sujBficient
discussion of muffins, eggs, tea, the news, the theatre,
and so forth, pulled a paper out of his pocket, and in
a piteous tone said, ‘ Here is that schedule of debts which
your honour ask^ for — ^two hundred and forty-three
pounds — every shilling I owe in the world, thank Heaven I
— ^that is — ahem! — every shilling of which the payment
will in the lea®t ineonTOuimice me — and I need not tell
my dearest patron that I shall consider him my saviour
and benefactor ! ’
It was then that Harry, taking the paper and eyeing
the chaplain with rather a wicked look, burst into a laugh,
which was, however, anything but jovial. Wicked execra-
tions, moreover, accompanied this outbreak of humour,
and the luckless chaplain felt that his petition had come
at the wrong moment.
* CJonfound it, why didn’t you bring it on Monday ? ’
Harry asked.
‘ Confound me, why did I not bring it on Monday ? ’
echoed the chaplain’s timid soul. * It is my luck — ^my
usual luck. Have the cards been against you, Mr. War-
rington ? ’
‘ Yes : a plague on them. Monday night, and last night,
have both gone against me. Don’t he frightened, chaplain,
there’s money enough in the locker yet. But I must go
into Ihe City and get some.’
‘ What, sell out, sir ? ’ asks his reverence, with a voice
that was reassured, though it intended to be alarmed.
HARRY niES HIGH
440
Sell out, sir ? Yes ! I borrowed a hundred of Mackreth
in counters last night, and must pay him at dinner-time.
I will do your business for you nevertheless, and never
fear, my good Mr. Sampson. Come to breakfast to-morrow,
and we will see and deliver your reverence from the Philis-
tines.’ But though he laughed in Sampson’s presence, and
strove to put a good face upon the matter, Harry’s head
sank down on his chest w^hen the parson quitted him, and
he sat over the fire, beating the coals about with the poker,
and giving utterance to many naughty disjointed words,
which showed, but did not relieve, the agitation of his
spirit.
In this mood, the young fellow was interrupted by the
appearance of a friend, who on any other day — even on
that one when his conscience was so uneasy — was welcome
to Mr. Warrington. This w’as no other than Mr. Lambert,
in his military dress, but with a cloak over him, w'ho had
come from the country, had been to the captain-general’s
levee that morning, and had come thence to visit his young
friend in Bond Street.
Harry may have thought Lambert’s greeting rather cold ;
but being occupied with his owm affairs, he put away that
notion. How were the ladies of Oakhurst, and Miss Hetty,
who was ailing when he passed through in the autumn ?
Purely ? Mr. Warrington was very glad. They w'ere come
to stay awhile in London with their friend Lord Wrotham ?
Mr. Harry was delighted — ^though it must be c<mfessed his
face did not exhibit any peculiar signs of pleasure when
he heard the new^s.
‘ And so you live at White’s, and with the great folks ;
and you fare sumptuously every day, and you pay your
court at St. James’s, and make one at my Lady Yarmouth’s
routs, and at all the card-parties in the Court end of the
town ? ’ asks the colonel.
‘ My dear colonel, I do what other folks do,’ says Harry,
with rather a high manner.
‘ Other folks are richer folks than some folks, my dear
lad.’
‘ Sir ! ’ says Mr, Warrington, ‘ I would thank you to
believe that I ow^^e nothing for which I cannot pay ! ’
‘ I should never have spoken about your affairs,’ said
the other, not noticing the young man’s haughty tone,
‘ but that you yourself confided them to me. I hear all
TIBQINIANS Q
450
THE VIRGBHANS
sorts of stori^ about the Fortunate Youth. Only at his
royal highness’s even to-day, they were saying how rich
you were already, and I did not undeceive them ’
‘ Colonel I^mbert, I can’t help the world gossiping about
me ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington, more and more impatient.
‘ — And what prodigious sums you had won. Eighteen
hundred one night — ^two thousand another — ^six or eight
thousand in all 1 Oh ! there were gentlemen from White’s
at the levee, too, I can assure you, and the army can fling
a main as well as you civilians 1 ’
^ I wish they would meddle with their own affairs,’ said
Harry, scowling at his old friend.
‘ ^d I, too, you look as if you were going to say. Well,
Kiy boy, it ia my affair, and you must let Theo’s father
and H<dity’s father, and Hariy Warrington’s father’s old
friend say how it m my affair.’ Here the colonel drew
a packet out of his pocket.^^ ‘ Look you, Harry. Th^
trinkets which you sent with the kindest he^ in the
world to people who love you, and would cut off their
little han^ to spare you needle pain, could never be
bought by a yorag fellow with two or three hundred
a year. Wky, d ndblernain mJ^t buy these things, or
a rich (Sty b4dter| i»id sejM them to hi^to his daughters,
let as tay.^
* Sir, as you say, I meant only kindness,’ says Harry,
blushing burning-red.
'‘But you must not give them to my girls, my boy.
Hester and Theodosia Lamb^ must not be dressed up with
the winnings off the gaming-table, saving your presence.
It goes to my heart to bring back the trinkets. IM&s. Lam-
bert will keep her present, which is of small value, and
sends you her love and a God bless you — and so say
I, Harry Warrington, with all my heart.’ Here the good
colonel’s voice was much moved, and his face grew very
red, and he passed his hand over his eyes ere he held
it out.
But the spirit of rebellion was strong in Mr. Warrington.
He rose up from his seat, never offering to take the hand
which his senior held out to him. ‘ Give me leave to tell
Cfelonel Lambert,’ he said, ‘ that I have had somewhat too
mmh advice fotm him. You are for ever volunteering it,
sir, and when I don’t ask it. You make it your business
to inquire about my gains at play, and about the company
HAEEY FLIES HIGH
451
I keep. What right have you to control my amusements
or my companions ? I strive to show my sense of your
former kiniiess by little presents to your family, and you
fling — ^you bring them back.’
‘ I can’t do otherwise, Mr. "Warrington,’ says the colonel,
vith a very sad face.
‘ Such a slight may mean nothing here, sir, but in our
country it means w^ar, sir 1 ’ cries Mr. Warrington. ‘ God
forbid I should talk of drawing a sword against the father
of ladies who have been as mother and sister to me : but
you have wounded my heart. Colonel Lambert — ^you have,
I won’t say insulted, but humiliated me, and this is a treat-
ment I will bear from no man alive I My servants will
attend you to the door, sir ! ’ Saying which, and rustling
in his brocade dressing-gown, Mr. Warrington, with much
state, walked off to his bedroom.
CHAPTER XLIV
OONTAIITS WHAT MIGHT, PEEHAPS, HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
N the rejection of his
peace-offerings,
our warlike young
American chief
chose tobe in great
wrath not only
against Colonel
Lambert, but the
whole of that gen-
tleman’s family.
‘ Hehas humiliate
me before the
girls ! ’ thought
the young man.
‘ He and Mr.
Wolfe, who were
for ever preaching
morality to me,
and giving themselves airs of superiority and protection,
have again been holding me up to the family as a scapegrace
452
THE VIBGINIANS
md prodigal. They are so virtuous that they won^t shake
me by the hand, forsooth ; and when I want to show them
a little common gratitude, they fling my presents in my
face !
‘ Why, sir, the things must be worth a little fortune I ’
says Parson Sampson, casting an eye of covetousness on
the two morocco boxes, in which, on their white satin
cushions, repcMsed Mr. Sparks’s golden gewgaws,
‘ They cost some money, Sampson,’ says the young man.
* Not that I would grudge ten times the amount to people
who have been kind to me.’
* No, faith, siv, not if I know your honour ! ’ interjects
Sampson, who never lost a chance of praising his young
patron to his face.
* The repeater, they told me, was a great bargain, and
worth a hundr^ pounds at Paris, little Miss Hetty,
I remember saying that she longed to have a repeating
watch.’
‘ Oh, what a love I ’ cries the chaplain, ‘ with a little
circle of pearls on tbq and a diamond knob for the
handle ! Why, ’twould win any woman’s heart, sir ! ’
‘ There passes an appte- woman with a basket, I have
a mind to fling the thing out to her ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington,
fiercdiy.
Wh^ Harry went out upon business, w’hich took him
to the CSty and the Temple, his parasite did not follow
him very far into the Strand ; but %mm.ed away, owning
that he had a terror of Chancery Lane, its inhabitants, and
precincts. Mr. Warringtcm went then to his broker, and
m&j walked to the Btak tether, where they did some
little business, at the md of which, and after the signing
of a trifling signature @r two, Harry departed with a certain
number of ori^ bank-notes in his pocket. The broker took
Mr, Warrington to on© of the great dining-houses for which
the City was famous th^ as now ; and ^terwards showed
Mr. Warrington the Virgmia walk upon ’Change, through
which Hany passed rather shamefacedly. T^at woifld
a certain laidy in Virginia say, he thought, if she knew
that he was carrying off in that bottomless gambler’s
pocket a gr^t portion of his father’s patrimony ? Those
are all Virginia merchants, thinks he, and they are all talking
to one another about me, and all saying, ‘ That is young
Esmond, of Castlewood, on the Potomac, Madam Esmond’s
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
453
son i and he has been losing his money at play, and he
has been selling out so much, and so much, and so much.’
Hjs spirits did not rise until he had j^sed under the
traitors’ heads of Temple Bar, and was fairly out of the
Gty. From the Strand Mr. Harry w^alked home, looking
in at St. James’s Street by the way ; but there was nobody
there as yet, the company not coming to the Chocolate-
house till a later hour.
Arrived at home, Mr. Harry pulls out his bundle of
bank-notes ; puts three of them into a sheet of paper,
which he seals carefully, having previously written within
the sheet the words, ‘ Much good may they do you.
H. E. W.,’ and this packet he directs to the Reverend
Mr. Sampson, — ^leaving it on the chimney glass, with direc-
tions to his servants to give it to that divine when he
should come in.
And now his honour’s phaeton is brought to the door,
and he steps in, thinking to drive round the park ; but
the rain coming on, or the east wind blowing, or some
other reason arising, his honour turns his horses’ heads
down St. James’s Street, and is back at White’s at about
three o’clock. Scarce anybody has come in yet. It is the
hour when folks are at dinner. There, however, is my
cou^ Castlewood, lounging over the Pvhlic Advertiser,
having just come off from h^ duty at Court hard by.
Lord Castlewood is yawning over the PulMo Advertiser,
What shall they do ? Shall they have a little piqtiet ?
Harry has no objection to a little piquet. ‘ Just for an
hour,’ says Lord Castlewood. ‘ I dine at Arlington Street
at four.’ ^ Just for an hour,’ says Mr. Warrington, and
they call for cards.
‘ Or shall we have ’em in upstairs ? ’ says my lord.
‘ Out of the noise ? ’
‘ Certainly, out of the noise,’ says Harry.
At five o’clock a half-dozen of gentlemen have come in
after their dinner, and are at cards, or coffee, or talk.
The folks from the ordinary have not left the table yet.
There the gentlemen of V^ite’s will often sit till past
midnight.
One toothpick points over the coffee-house blinds into
the street. ‘ Whose phaeton ? ’ asks Toothpick 1 of Tooth-
pick 2.
‘ The Fortunate Youth’s,’ says No. 2,
454
THE VIRGINIAHS
‘ Not so fortunate the last three nights. Luck con-
foundedly against him. Lost, last night, thirteen hundred
to the table. Mr. Warrington been here to-day, John ? ’
^ Mr. Warrington is in the house now, sir. In the little
tea-room with Lord Castlewood since three o’clock. They
are playing at piquet,’ says John.
‘ What fun for Oastiewood,’ says No. 1, with a shrug.
The second gentleman growls out an execration. ‘ Curse
the fellow ! ’ he says. ‘ He has no right to be in this club
at all. He doesn’t pay if he loses. Gentlemen ought not
to play with him. Sir Miles Warrington told me at Court
the other day, that Castlewood has owed him money on
a bet these three years.’
‘ Castlewood,’ says No. 1, * don’t lose if he plays alone.
A la^e company fiwriea him, you see — ^that’s why he doesn’t
come to the table.’ And the facetious gentleman grins,
and shows all his te^h, polished perfectly clean.
‘ Let’s go up and stop ’em,’ growls No. 2.
‘ Why ? ’ asks the other. ‘ Much better look out
a-windbw. Lamplighter going up the ladder — ^famous
qK)rt. Look at that old put in the chair, did you ever
see such an old quiz 7 ’
‘ Who is that just gone out of the house ? As I live,
it’s Fortunatus I He seems to have forgotten that his
phaeton has been here, waiting all the time. I bet you two
to one he has been losing to Castle'wood.’
‘ Jack, do you take me to be a fool f ’ asks the one
gentleman of the other. ^ Pretty pahr of horses the youth
has got. How he is flogging ’em ! ’ And they see Mr. War-
rington galloping mp the street, and scared coachmen
and chairmen clearing before him : presently my Lord
Castlewood is seen to enter a chair, and go his way.
Harry drives up to his own door. It was but a few
yards, and thc^ poor horses have been beating the pave-
ment all this whfle in the rain. Mr. Gumbo is engaged
at the door in conversation with a countrified-lool^g
lass, who trips off vith a curtsy. Mr. Gumbo is always
ei^ged mth some pretty maid or other.
* Gumbo, has Mr. Sampson been here ? ’ asks Gumbo’s
master from his driving seat.
* No, sar. Mr. Sampson have not been here ! ’ answers
Mr. Warrington’s gentleman. Harry bids him to go upstairs
and bring down a letter addressed to Mr. Sampson.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
455
‘ Addressed to Mr. Sampson ? Oh, yes, sir,’ says Mr.
Gumbo, who can’t read.
" A sealed letter, stupid ! on the mantelpiece, in the
glass 1 ’ says Harry ; and Gumbo leisurely retires to fetch
that document. As soon as Harry has it, he turns his
horses’ heads towards St. James’s Street, and the two
gentlemen, still yawning out of the window at White’s,
behold the Fortunate Youth, in an instant, back again.
As they passed out of the little tea-room where he and
Lord Castlewood had had their piquet together, Mr. War-
rington had seen that several gentlemen had entered the
play-room, and that there was a bank there. Some were
already steadily at work, and had their gaming jackets
on ; they kept such coats at the club, which they put on
when they had a mind to sit down to a regular night’s
play.
Mr. Warrington goes to the clerk’s desk, pays his account
of the previous night, and, sitting down at the table, calls
for fresh counters. This has been decidedly an unlucky
week with the Fortunate Youth, and to-night is no more
fortunate than previous nights have been. He calls for
more counters, and more presently. He is a little pale
and silent, though very easy and polite when talked to.
But he cannot win.
At last he gets up. ‘ Hang it ! stay and mend your
luck ! ’ says tord March, who is sitting by his side with
a heap of counters before him, green and white. ‘ Take
a hundred of mine, and go on 1 ’
‘ I have had enough for to-night, my lord,’ says Harry,
and rises and goes away, and eats a broiled bone in the
coffee-room, and walks back to his lodgings some time
about midnight. A man after a great catastrophe com-
monly sleeps very well. It is the waking in the morning
which is sometimes queer and unpleasant. Last night
you proposed to Miss Brown : you quarrelled over your
cups with Captain Jones, and valorously pulled his nose :
you played at cards with Colonel Robinson, and gave
him, oh, how many 1 0 U’s ! These thoughts, with a fine
headache, assail you in the morning w^atches. What
a dreary, dreary gulf betw^een to-day and yesterday !
It seems as if you are years older. Can’t you leap back
over that chasm again, and is it not possible that Yesterday
is but a dream ? There you are, in bed. No daylight in
m
THE VIEGINIANS
at the windows yet. Pull your nightcap over your eyes,
the blankets over your nose, and sleep away Yesterday.
Psha, man, it was but a dream ! Oh, no, no ! The sleep
won^t come. The watchman bawls some hour — what
hour ? Harry minds him that he has got the repeating
watch under his pillow which he had bought for Hester.
Ting, ting, ting ! the repeating watch sings out six times
in the darkness, with a little supplementary performance
indicating the half-hour. Poor dear little Hester ! — so
bright, so gay, so innocent ! he would have liked her to have
that watch. What will Maria say ? (Oh, that old Maria !
what a bore she is beginning to be ! he thinks.) What
will Madam Esmond at home say when she hears that
he has lodj every shilling of his ready money — of his
patrimony ? All his winnings, and five thousand pounds
besides, in three nights. C^tlewood could not have
played him false ? No. My lord knows piquet better
than Harry does, but he would not deal unfairly with his
ovm flesh and blood. No, no. Harry is glad his kinsman,
who wanted the mmey, has got it. And for not one
more shilling than he possessed, would he play. It was
when he counted up his losses at the gaming-table, and
found they would cover all the remainder of his patrimony,
that he passed the box and left the table. But, 0 cursed
bad cbmpany ! 0 extravagance and folly I O humilia-
tion and remorse ! ^ Will my mother at home forgive
me 1 ’ thinks the young prodigal. ‘ Oh, that I were there,
and had never left it ! ’
The dreary London dawn peeps at length through
shutters smd curtains. The housemaid enters to light
his hanour’s fire and admit the dun morning into his
windows. Her Mr. Gumbo presently follows, who warms
his master’s dressing-gown and sets out his shaving-plate
and linen. Then arrives the hairdresser to curl and powder
his honour, whilst he reads his morning’s letters ; and at
breakfast-time comes that inevitable Parson Sampson,
with eager looks and servile smiles, to wait on his patron.
The parson would have returned yesterday according to
mutual agreement, but some jolly fellows kept him to
diimer at the ‘ St. Alban’s ’, and, faith, they made a night
of it.
* Oh, parson ! ’ groans Harry, ‘ ’twas the worst night
you ever made in your life ! Look here, sir ! ’
WHAT fflGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
457
‘ Here is a broken envelope with the words, ‘‘Much good
may it do you,’’ wTitten within,’ says the chaplain, glancing
at the paper.
‘ Look on the outside, sir ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington. " The
paper was directed to you.’ The poor chaplain’s coun-
tenance exhibited great alarm. ‘ Has some one broke it
open, sir ? ’ he asks.
‘ Some one, yes. I broke it open, Sampson. Had you
come here as you proposed yesterday afternoon, you would
have found that envelope full of bank-notes. As it is, they
were all dropped at the infernal macco-table last night.’
‘ What, all ? ’ says Sampson.
‘ Yes, all, with all the money I brought away from the
City, and all the ready money I have left in the world.
In the afternoon I played piquet with my cous — with
a gentleman at White’s — ^and he eased me of all the money
I had about me. Remembering that there was still some
money left here, unless you had fetched it, I came home
and carried it l^ck and left it at the ma^co-table with
every shilling besides that belongs to me — and — great
Heaven, Sampson, what’s the matter, man ? ’
‘ It’s my luck, it’s my usual luck,’ cries out the unfor-
tunate chaplain, and fairly bursts into tears.
' ‘ What I You are not whimpering like a baby at the
loss of a loan of a couple* of hundred pounds ? ’ cries out
Mr. Warrington, very fierce and angry. ‘ Leave the room,>
Gumbo ! Confound you I why are you always ' tpoking
your woolly head in at that door ? ’
‘ Some one below wants to see master wdth a little bill,’
says Mr. Gumbo.
‘ TeU him to go to Jericho \ ’ roars out Mr. Warrington.
‘ Let me see nobody ! I am not at home, sir, at this hour
of the morning I ’
A murmur or two, a scuffle is heard on the landing-place,
and silence finally ensues. Mr. Warrington’s scorn and
anger are not diminished by this altercation. He turns
round savagely upon unhappy Sampson, who sits with his
head buried in his breast.
‘Hadn’t you better take a bumper of brandy to keep
your spirits up, Mr. Sampson ? ’ he asks. ‘ Hang it, man !
don’t be snivelling like a w’oman ! ’
‘ Oh, it’s not me ! ’ says Sampson, tossing his head.
‘ I am used to it, sir.’
458
THE VIBGINIANS
^ Not you I Who then ? Are you crying because
somebody else is hurt, pray ? ’ asks Mr. Warrington.
‘ Yes, sir ! ’ says the chaplain with some spirit ; ‘ because
somebody else is hurt, and through my fault. I have
lodged for many years in London with a bootmaker, a very
honest man; and, a few days since, having a perfect
reliance upon — ^upon a friend who had promised to accom-
modate me with a loan — borrowed sixty pounds from
my landlord which he was about to pay to his own. I can’t
get the money. My poor landlord’s goods w^ill be seized
for rent ; his wife and dear young children will be turned
into the street ; and this honest family wiU be ruined
through my fault. But, as you say, Mr. Warrington,
I ought not to snivel like a woman. I will remember that
you helped me once, and will bid you farew^ell, sir.’
And, taking his broad-leafed hat, Mr. CJhaplain walked
out of the room.
An execration and a savage lau^, I am sorry to say,
burst out of Harry’s lips at this sudden movement of the
chaplain’s. He was in such a passion with himself, with
circumstances, with all people round about him, that he
scarce knew where to turn, or what he said. Sampson
heard the savage laughter, and then the voice of Harry
calling from the stairs, * Sampson, Sampson I hang you !
come back 1 It’s a mistake ! I beg your pardon I ’ But
the chaplain was cut to the soul, and walked on. Harry
heard the door of the street as the parson slammed it.
It thumped on his own b?east. He entered his room
and sank hack on his luxurious chair there. He was
Prodigal, amongst the swine — ^his foul remorses ; > they
had tripped him up, and were wallowing over him. Gam-
bling, extravagance, debauchery, dissolute life, reckless
companions, (hingerou^ women — ^they were all upon him
in a herd, and were trampling upon the prostrate young
sinner.
Prodigal was not, however, yet utterly overcome, and
had some fight left in him. Dashing the fflthy importunate
brutes aside, and, as it were, kicking his ugly remembrances
away from him, Mr. Warrington seized a great glass of
that fire-water which he had recommended to poor humi-
liated Parson Sampson, and, flinging off his fine damask
robe, rang for the trembling Gumbo, and ordered his
coat. * Not that ! ’ roars he, as Gumbo brings him a fine
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
459
green coat, with plated buttons and a gold cord. " A plain
suit — the plainer the better ! The black clothes.’ And
Gumbo brings the mourning-coat which his master had
discarded for some months past.
Mr. Harry then takes : — 1, his fine new gold watch ; 2, his
repeater {that which he had bought for Hetty), which he
puts into his other fob; 3, his. necklace, which he had
purchased for Theo ; 4, his rings, of which my gentleman
must have half a dozen at least (with the exception of his
grandfather’s old seal-ring, which he kisses and lays down
on the pincushion again) ; 5, his three gold snuff-boxes ;
and 6, his purse kmtted by his mother, and containing
three shillings and sixpence and a pocket-piece brought
from Virginia ; and, putting on his hat, issues from his
door.
At the landing he is met by Mr. Ruff, his landlord, who
bows and cringes and puts into his honour’s hand a strip
of paper a yard long. ‘ Much obliged if Mr. Warrington
win settle. Mrs. Ruff has a large account to make up
to-day.’ Mrs. Ruff is a milliner. Mr. Ruff is one of
the head waiters and aides de camp of Mr. Mackreth,
the proprietor of White’s Club. The sight of the landlord
does not add to the lodger’s good humour.
’ ‘ Periiaps Ms honour wiU have the kindness to settle
the little account f ’ asks Mr. Ruff.
‘ Of course I will settle the account,’ says Harry, glumly
looking down over Mr. Ruff’s head from the stair above
Mm.
‘ Perhaps Mr. Warrington wiU settle it now ? ’
* No, sir, I wiU not settle it now ! ’ says Mr. Warrington,
buUying forward.
‘ I’m very — very much in want of money, sir,’ pleads the
voice under Mm. ‘ Mrs. Ruff is ’
‘ Hang you, sir, get out of the way ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington,
ferociously, and driving Mr. Ruff backward to the waU,
sending him almost topsy-turvy down Ms own landing,
he tramps down the stair, and walks forth into Bond
Street.
The Guards were at exercise at the King’s Mews at
Charing Ooss, as Harry passed, and he heard their drums
and fifes, and looked in at the gate, and saw them at drill*
^ I can shotilder a musket at any rate,’ thought he to
himself gloomily, as he strode on* He crossed St. Martin’^
460
THE VIRGINIANS
Lane (where he transacted some business), and so made
his way into Long Acre, and to the bootmaker’s house
where friend Sampson lodged. The woman of the house
said ]VIr. Sampson w’as not at home, but had promised to
be at home at one ; and, as she knew Mr. Warrington,
showed him up to the parson’s apartments, where he sat
down, and, for want of occupation, tried to read an un-
finished sermon of the chaplain’s. The subject was the
Prodigal Son. Mr. Harry did not take very accurate
cognizance of the sermon.
Presently he heard the landlady’s shrill voice on the
stair, pursuing somebody who ascended, and Sampson
rushed into the room followed by the sobbing woman.
At seeing Harry, Sampson started, and the landlady
stopped. Absorbed in her own domestic cares, she had
doubtless foigot that a visitor was awaiting her lodger.
‘ There’s only thirteen pound in the house, and he will
be here at one, I teH you ! ’ she was bawling out, as she
pursued her victim.
‘ Hush, hush ! my good creature ! ’ cries the gasping
chaplain, pcfinting to Harry, who rose from the wiiidow-
‘D«’^ you see Mr.«i,W^rrmgtont I’ve business
witb him — most unpcsplaiii business.* It wil be all right,
I’tefl you! ’ And 1^? soothed and coaxed Mrs. Landlady
out of the room, with the crowd of anxious little ones
hanging at her coats.
* Sampson, I have come to ask your pardon, again,’ says
Mr. Warrington, rising up. ‘ What I said to-day to you
was very cruel and unjust, and unlike a gentleman.’
* Not a word more, sir,’ says the other, coldly and sadly,
bowing and scarcely pressing the hand which Harry offer^
him.
* I see you are still angry with me,’ Harry continues.
‘Nay, sir, an apology is an apology. A man of my
station can ask for no more from one of yours. No doubt
you did not mean to give me pain. And what if you
did ? And you are not the only one of the family who
has,’ he said, as he looked piteously round the room.
‘ I wish I had never known the name of Esmond or Castle-
wood?’ he continues, ‘or that jdace yonder of which the
jrictgre hangs over my fireplace, and where I have buried
piy^ these long, long years. My lord, your cousin, took
^ fancy* to me, said he w’ould make my fortune, has kept
WHAT MIGET HAVE BEEN EXPECTED 461
me as his dependant till fortune has passed by me, and
now refuses me my due.’
* How do you mean your due, Mr. Sampson ? ’ asks
Harry.
‘ I mean three years’ salary which he owes me as chaplain
of Castlewood. Seeing you could give me no money,
I went to his lordship this morning, and asked him. I
fell on my knees, and asked him, sir. But his lordship
had none. He gave me civil words, at least (saving
your presence, Mr. Warrington), but no money — that
is, five guineas, which he declared was all he had, and
which I took. But what are five guineas amongst so
many ? Oh, those poor little children ! those poor little
children ! ’
‘Lord Castlewood said he had no money?’ cries, out
Harry. ‘He won eleven hundred pounds, yesterday, of
me at piquet — ^whieh I paid him out of this pocket-book.’
‘ I dare say, sir ; I dare say, sir. One can’t believe a w^ord
his lordship says, sir,’ says Mr. Sampson; ‘but I am
thinking of execution in this house and ruin upon these
poor folks to-morrow.’
‘ That need not happen,’ says Mr. Warrington. ‘ Here
are eighty guineas, Sampson. As far as they go, God help
you ! /Tis all I have to give you. I wish to my heart
I could give more as I promised ; but you did not come
at the right time, and I am a poor devil now until I get
my remittances from Virginia.’
The chaplain gave a v^d look of surprise, and turned
quite white. He flung himself down on his knees and seized
Harry’s hand.
‘ Great Powers, sir ! ’ says he, ‘ are you a guardian angel
that Heaven hath sent me ? You quarrelled with my
tears this morning, Mr. Warrington. I can’t help them
now. They burst, sir, from a grateful heart. A rock of
stone would pour them forth, sir, before such goodness
as yours ! May Heaven eternally bless you, and give you
prosperity ! May my unworthy prayers he heard in your
behalf, my friend, my best benefactor 1 May- ’
‘ Nay, nay ! get up, friend — ^get up, Sampson 1 ’ says
Harry, whom the chaplain’s adulation and fine phrases
rather annoyed. ‘ I am glad to have been able to do you
a service — sincerely glad. There — there ! Don’t be on
your knees to me 1 ’
462
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ To Heayen who sent you to me, sir ! ’ cries the chaplain.
* Mrs. Weston I Mrs. Weston ! ’
‘ What is it, sir ? * says the landlady, instantly, who,
ind^, had b^n at the door the whole time. ‘ We are
saved, Mrs. Weston ! We are saved ! ’ cries the chaplain.
‘ Kneel, kneel, woman, and thank our benefactor ! Raise
your innocent voices, children, and bless him!’ A uni-
versal whimper arose round Harry, which the chaplain
led off, whilst the young Virginian stood, simpering and
well pleased, in the naidst of this congregation. They
wotdd wor^p, do what he might. One of the children,
not imderstan^ng the kneeling order, and standing up,
the mother fetched her a slap on the ear, crying, ‘ Drat
it, Jane, kneel down, and bless the gentleman, I tell ’ee ! ’
We leave them performing this sweet bene-
dictory service. Mr. Bbrry walks off from Long Acre,
forgetting almost the griefs of the former four or five days,
md tingling with the consciousne^ of having done a good
action.
The young woman with whom Gumbo had been con-
versing on that evening when Harry drove up from White’s
to his lodging, was Mrs. Molly, from Oakhurst, the attendant
of the ladies there. Wherever that fascinating Gumbo
went, he left friends and admirers in the servants’ hall.
I think we said it was on a Wednesday evening, he and
Mrs. MoUy had fetched a walk together, and they were
performing the amiable courtesfes mddent upon parting,
when Gumbo’s master came up, and put an end to their
twilight whisperings, and what not.
Ibr many hours on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday,
a pde little maiden sat at a window in Lord Wrotham’s
house, in Hill Street, her mother and sister wistfully
watching her. She would not go out. They knew whom
she was expecting. He passed the door once, and she
might have thought he was coming, but he did not. He
went into a neighbouring house. Papa had never told
the girls of the presents which Harry had sent, and only
whispered a word or two to their mother regarding his
quarfd with the yonng Vnginian.
On Saturday night there was an opera of Mr. Handel’s,
and pa]^ brought home tickets for the gallery. Hetty
went this evening. The change would do her good, Theo
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
463
thought, and — and, perhaps there might be Somebody
amongst the fine company ; but Somebody was not there ;
and Handel’s fine music fell blank upon the poor child.
It might have been Signor Bononcini’s, and she would
have scarce known the difierence.
As the children are undressing, and taking off those
smart new satin sacks in w^hich they appeared at the
opera, looking so fresh and so pretty amongst all the tawdry
rouged folk, Theo remarks how very sad and woebegone,
Mrs. Molly, their maid, appears. Theo is always anxious
when other people seem in trouble ; not so Hetty, now,
who is suffering, poor thing, from one of the most selfish
maladies which ever visits mortals. Have you ever been
amongst insane people, and remarked how they never,
never think of any but themselves ?
‘ What is the matter, Molly ? ’ asks kind Theo : and,
indeed, Molly has been longing to tell her young ladies.
‘ 0 Miss Theo ! 0 Miss Hetty ! ’ she says ; ‘ how ever
can I tell you ? Mr. Gumbo have been here, Mr. War-
rington’s coloured gentleman, miss; and he says Mr.
Warrington have been took by two bailiffs this evening,
as he comes out of Sir Miles Warrington’s house, three
doors off,’
* Silence!’ cries Theo, quite sternly. Wlio is it that
gives those three shrieks ? It is Mrs. Molly, who chooses
to scream, because Miss Hetty has fallen fainting from
her chair.
464
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XLV
m WHICH HAEEY FINDS TWO UNCLES
E have all of us, no doubt,
had a fine experience of
the world, and a vast
variety of characters
have passed under our
eyes ; but there is one
sort of men — ^not an
uncommon object of
satire innovels andplays
— of whom I confess to
have met with scarceany
specimens at all in my
intercourse with this sin-
ful mankind. I mean,
mere religious hypocrites,
preaching for ever, and
not believing a word of
th^ own sermons; infidels in broad brims and sables,
expounding, exhorting, comminating, blessing, without
any faith in their own paradise, or fear about their pan-
demonium. Look at those candid trcoj^ of hobnails
clumping to church on a Sunday evening ; those rustling
maidservants in their ribbons whom the young apprentices
follow ; those little regiments of schoolboys ; those trim
young maidens and staid matrons, marching with their
glistening Prayer-books, as the chapel bell chinks yonder
(pacing Ebenezer, very likely, where the congregation of
umbrellas, great bonnets, and pattens, is by this time
assembled under the flaring gas-lamps). Look at those !
How many of them are hypocrites, think you ? Very likely
the maidservant is thinMng of her sweetheart : the grocer
is casting about how he can buy that parcel of sugar, and
whether the county bank will take any more of his paper :
the head schoolboy is conning Latin verses for Monday’s
exm^ise : the young scapegrace remembers that after this ser-
vice and sermon, there will be papa’s exposition at home, but
that there will be pie for supper : the clerk who calls out the
HAERY FINDS TWO UNCLES
465
psalm has his daughter in trouble, and drones through
liis responses scarcely aware of their meaning; the very
moment the parson hides his face on his cusliion, he may
be thinking of that bill which is coming due on Monday.
These people are not heavenly-minded ; they are of the
world, worldly, and have not yet got their feet off of it ;
but they are not hypocrites, look you. Polks have their
religion in some handy mental lock-up, as it were, — a valu-
able medicine, to be taken in ill-health ; and a man admin-
isters his nostrum to his neighbour, and recommends his
private cure for the other’s complaint. ‘ My dear madam,
you have spasms ? You will find these drops infallible 1 ’
‘ You have been taking too much wine, my good sir ?
By this pill you may defy any evil consequences from
too much wine, and take your bottle of port daily.’ Of
spiritual and bodily physic, who are more fond and eager
dispensers than women ? And we know that, especially
a hundred years ago, every lady in the country had her
still-room, and her medicine-chest, her pills, powders,
potions, for all the village round.
My IMy Warrington took charge of the consciences and
the digestions of her husband’s tenants and family. She
had the faith and health of the servants’ hall in keeping.
Heaven tell whether she knew how to doctor them
rightly : but, was it pill or doctrine, she administered one or
the other with equal belief in her own authority, and her
disciples sw^allowed both obediently. She believ^ herself
to be one of the most virtuous, self-denying, wi^, learned
women in the world ; and, dinning this opinion perpetually
into the ears of all round about her, succeeded in bringing
not a few persons to join in her persuasion.
At Sir Miles’s dinner there was so fine a sideboard of
plate, and such a number of men in livery, that it required
some presence of mind to perceive that the beer was of the
smallest which the butler brought round in the splendid
tankard, and that there was but one joint of mutton on
the grand silver dish. When Sir Miles called the king’s
health, and smacked his jolly lips over his wine, he eyed it
and the company as if the liquor was ambrosia. He asked
Harry Warrington whether they had port like that in
Virginia ? He said that was nothing to the wine Harry
should taste in Norfolk. He praised the wine so, that
Harry almost believed that it was good, and winked into
THE VIRGINIANS
m
Ms own glass, tryibag to see some of the merits w^liich his
uncle perceiv^ in the ruby nectar.
Just as we see in many a well-regulated family of this
S resent century, the Warringtons had their tw^o paragons.
>f the two grown daughters, the one was the greatest
beauty, the other the greatest genius and angel of any
young lady then alive, as Lady Warrington told Harry.
The eldest, the Beauty, was engaged to dear Tom Claypool,
the fond mother informed her cousin Harry in confidence.
But the second daughter, the Genius and Angel, was for
ever set upon our young fri^d to improve his wits and
morals. She sang to him at the harpsichord — rather
out of tune for an angel, Harry thought ; she was ready
with advice, instruction, conversation — ^with almost too
much instruction and advice, thought Harry, who would
have far pref^ed the society of the little cousin who
r^ninded Mm of Fanny Mountain at home. But the last-
mentionsed young maiden after dinner retired to her
nursery commonly. Beauty went off on her own avoca-
tions ; mamma had to attend to her poor or write her
volumino!|s letters; papa dozed in his arm-chair; and
the Genius remained to keep h^ young cousin company.
'ihe calm of ihe house somehow pleased the young man,
and he liked to take refuge there away from the riot and
disripation in wMch he ordinarily lived. Certainly no
w’^elcome could be kinder than that which he got. The
doors were opened to Mm at all hours. If Flora was not
at home, Dora was ready to receive Mm. Ere many days’
acquaintance, he and Ms littb cousin Miles had been to
have a galloping-match in the Park, and Harry, who was
kind and generous to every man alive who came near
him, had in view the purchase of a little horse for his cousin,
far better than that which the boy rode, when the circum-
stances occurred wMch brought aU our poor Harry’s
ooach^ and horses to a sudden breakdown.
Though Sr Miles Warrington had imagined Virginia
to be an island, the ladies were much better instructed
in geography, and anxious to hear from Harry all about
his home and Ms native country. He, on his part, w^as
not averse to talk about it. He described to them the
length and breadth of his estate; the rivers w^hich it
coasted ; the produce which it bore. He had had with
a friend a little practice of surveying in his boyhood. He
HARRY FINDS TWO UNCLES
467
made a map of his county, with some fine towns here and
there, which, in truth, were but log-huts {but, for the
honour of his country, he was desirous that they should
w^ear as handsome a look as possible). Here was Potomac ;
here was James River ; here were the wharves whence his
mother’s ships and tobacco were brought to the sea. In
truth, the estate was as large as a county. He did not
brag about the place overmuch. To see the handsome
young fellow, in a fine suit of velvet and silver-lace, making
his draught, pointing out this hiU and that forest or town,
you might have imagined him a travelling prince describing
the re^ms of the queen his mother. lie almost fancied
himself to be so at times. He had miles where gentlemen
in England had acres. Not only Dora listened, but the
beauteous Flora bowed her fair head and heard him with
attention. Why, what was young Tom Claypool, their
brother baronet’s son in Norfolk, with his great boots,
his great voice, and his heirdom to a poor five thousand
acres, compared to this young American prince and charm-
ing stranger ? Angel as she was, Dora b^an to lose her
angelic temper, and to twit Flora for a flirt. Claypool, in
his red waistcoat, would sit dumb before the splendid
Harry in his ruflSes and laces, talking of March and Chester-
fidd, Selwyn and Bolingbroke, and the whole company
of Macaronis. Mamma began to love Harry more and
more as a son. She was anxious about the spiritual welfare
of those poor Indians, of those poor negroes in Virginia.
What could she do to help dear Madam F^ond (a precious
woman, she knew 1) in the good work ? She had a serious
butler and housekeeper : they were delighted with the
spiritual behaviour and sweet musical gifts of Gumbo.
‘ Ah ! Harry, Harry ! you have been a sad wild boy I
Why did you not come sooner to us, sir, and not lose your
time amongst the spendthrifts and the vain world ? But
’tis not yet too late. We must reclaim thee, dear Harry !
Mustn’t we, Sir Miles ? Mustn’t we, Dora ? Mustn’t we,
Flora ? ’
The three ladies aU look up to the ceiling. They mil
reclaim the dear prodigal. It is which shall reclaim him
most. Dora sits by and watches Flora. As for mamma,
when the girls are away, she talks to him more and more
seriously, more and more tenderly. She will be a mother to
him in the absence of his own admirable parent. She gives
m THE VIRGINIANS
him a hymn-book. She kisses him on the forehead. She
is actuated by the purest love, tenderness, reli^ous regard,
towards her dear, wayward, wild, amiable nephew.
While these sentimentalities were going on, it is to be
presumed that Mr. Warrington kept his own counsel
about his affairs out-of-doors, which we have seen w^ere
in the very worst condition. He who had been favoured
by Fortune for so many weeks was suddenly deserted by
her, and a few days had served to kick down all his heap
of winnings. Do we say that my Lord Castlewood, his own
kinsman, had dealt unfairly by the young Virginian, and
in the course of a couple of afternoons’ closet practice
had robbed him ? We would insinuate nothing so dis-
respectful to his lordship’s character; but he had won
from Harry every shilling which properly belonged to him,
and would have played him for has revensions but that
the young man flung up his hands when he saw himself
m far b^ten, and declared thaJb he must continue the
battle no more. Remembering that there still remained
a spar out of the wreck, as it were — ^that portion which he
had set a^e for poor &mpson — ^Harry ventured it at the
gaming-table ; hat that last r^ouree went down along with
the rest of Barry’s possesi^ons, and Fortune fluttered
off i® the storm, leaving the luckless adventurer almost
naked on the shore,
Wh^ a man is young and generous and hearty the loss
of money scarce afflicts him. Harry would sell his horses
and carriages, and diminish of life. If he wanted
immediate supplies of money, would not his Aunt Bernstein
be his banker, or his kinsman who had won so much from
him, or his kind Uncle Warrington and Lady Warrington
who were always talking \irtue and benevolence, and
declaring that they loved him as a son ? He would call
upon th^, or any one of than whom he might choose to
favour, at his leisure ; meanwhile, Sampson’s story of his
kndloM’s distress touched the young gentleman, and, in
order to raise a hasty supply for the clergyman, he carried
off afl his trinkets to a certain pawn&oker’s shop in
St. Martin’s Lane.
Now this broker was a relative or partner of that very
Mr. Sparks of Tavistock Street from whom Harry had
purehased— -purchased, did we say ? — ^no; taken the trinkets
which he had intended to pr^nt to his Oakhurst friends ;
HAKRY FINDS TWO UNCLES 469
and it chanced that Mr. Sparks came to visit his brother
tradesman very soon after Mr. Warrington had disposed of
his goods. Recognizing immediately the little enamelled
diamond-handled repeater which he had sold to the
Portunate Youth, the jeweller broke out into expressions
regarding Harry which I ^ill not mention here, being
already accused of speaking much too plainly. A gentle-
man who is acquainted with a pawnbroker, we may be sure
has a bailiff or two amongst his acquaintances ; and those
bailiffs have followers who, at the bidding of the impartial
Law, will touch with equal hand the fiercest captain’s
epaulet or the finest Macaroni’s shoulder. The very
gentlemen who had seized upon Lady Maria at Tunbridge
were set upon her cousin in London. They easily learned
from the garrulous Gumbo that his honour was at Sir
Miles Warrington’s house in Hill Street, and whilst the
black was courting Mrs. Lambert’s maid at the adjoining
mansion, Mr. Postigan and his assistant lay in wait for
poor Harry, who was enjoying the delights of intercourse
with a virtuous family circle assembled round his aunt’s
table. Never had Uncle Miles been more cordial, never had
Aunt Warrington been more gracious, gentle, and affec-
tionate ; Mora looked unusually lovely, Dora had been
more than ordinarily amiable. At parting, my lady gave
him both her hands, and called benechctions from the ceiling
down upon him. Papa had said in his most jovial manner,
‘ Hang it, nephew ! when I was thy age I should have
kissed two such fine girls as Do and Mo ere this, and my
own flesh and blood, too 1 Don’t tell me ! I shmM,
my Lady Warrington ! Odds-fish ! ’tis the boy blushes,
and not the girls, I think — suppose they are used to it.
He !— he ! ’
" Papa I ’ cry the virgins.
‘ Sir Miles ! ’ says the august mother at the same instant.
‘ There, there,’ says papa, ‘ a kiss won’t do no harm,
and won’t tell no tales : will it, nephew Harry ? ’ I suppose,
during the utterance of the above three brief phrases, the
harmless little osculatory operation has taken place, and
blushing Cousin Harry has touched the damask cheek
of Cousin Mora and Cousin Dora.
As he goes downstairs with his uncle, mamma makes
a speech to the girls, looking, as usual, up to the ceiling,
and saying, ‘ What precious qualities your poor dear
470
THE vmmoARB
cousin has ! What shrewdness mingled with his simplicity,
and what a fine genteel manner, though upon mere worldly
elegance I set little store. What a dreadful pity to think
that such a vessel should ever be lost ! We must rescue
him, my loves. We must take him away from those wicked
companions, and those horrible Castlewoods — ^not that
I would speak ill of my neighbours. But I shall hope,
I shall pray, that he may be rescued from his evil courses ! ’
and again Lady Warrington eyes the cornice in a most
determined manner, as the girls wistfully look towards
the door behind winch their interesting cousin has just
vanished.
His uncle will go downstairs with him. He calls ‘ God
bless you, my boy I ’ most affectionately : he presses
Harry’s hand, and repeats his valuable benedietion at the
door. As it closes, the light from the hall within having
sufficiently illuminated Mr. Warrington’s face and figure,
two gentlemen, who have be^ standing on the opposite
side of the way, advance rapidly, and one of them takes
a strip of paper out of his poc&t, and putting his hand
upon Mr. Warrington’s shoulder, declares him his prisoner,
a hacknw coach is in attendance, and poor Harry goes to
sleep in (^ancery Lime.
Cih, to think that a Virginian prince’s back should be
dapp^ by a ragged bailiff’s follower ! — that Madam
Esmond’s son should be in a spnnging house in Cursitor
Street ! I do not envy our young prodigal his rest on that
dismal night. Let us hit him now he is dowm, my beloved
young friends- Let us imagine the stings of remorse
keeping him wakeful on his dingy pillow : the horrid jolli-
fications of other hardened inmat^ of the place ringing
in his ears from the room hard by, where they sit boozing ;
the rage and shame and discomfiture. ISTo pity on him
I say, my honest young gentlemen, for you, of course,
have never indulged in extravagance or f oUy, or paid the
reckoning of remorse.
f
473
CHAPTER XLVI
CHAINS AND SLAVERY
EMOBSE for past misdeeds and
follies Harry sincerely felt, when
he found himself a prisoner in
that dismal lock-up house, and
wrath and annoyance at the
idea of being subjected to the
indignity of arrest ; but the
present unpleasantry he felt
sure could only be momentary.
He had twenty friends who
would release him from his con-
finement : to which of them
should he apply, was the ques-
tion, Mr. Draper, the man of
business, who had been so obsequious to him : his kind
uncle the baronet, who had offered to make his house
Harry’s home, who loved him as a son : his Cousin Castle-
wood, who had won such large sums from him : his noble
friends at the C8iocolale-hot^, his good Aunt Bernstein —
any one of these Harry felt sure would give him a help in
his trouble, though some of the relatives, perhaps, might
administer to him a little scolding tor Ms imprudence.
The main point was, that the matter should be transacted
quietly, for Mr. Warrington was anxious that as few as
possible of the public should know how a gentleman of his
prodigious importance had been subject to such a vulgar
process as an arrest.^
‘ A pretty sensation my arrest must have created at the
club I ’ thought Harry. ‘ I suppose that Mr. Selwyn will
be cutting all sorts of jokes about my misfortune, plague
take him ! Everybody round the table will have heard of it.
March will tremble about the bet I have with him ; and,
faith, ’twill be difficult to pay him when I lose. They
will all be setting up a whoop of congratulation at the
Savage, as they call me, being taken prisoner. How shall
I ever be able to appear in the world again ? Whom shall
I ask to come to my help ? No,’ thought he, vith his
474
THE VIEGINIANS
mingled acuteness and simplicity, ‘ I will not send in the
first instance to any of my relations or my noble friends at
White’s. I will have Sampson’s counsel. He has often
been in a similar predicament, and will know how to advise
me,’ Accordingly, as soon as the light of dawn appeared,
after an almost intolerable delay — ^for it seemed to Harry
as if the sun had forgotten to visit Cursitor Street in his
rounds that morning — and as soon as the inmates of the
house of bondage were stirring, Mr. Warrington dispatched
a messenger to his friend in Long Acre, acquainting the
chaplain with the calamity just befallen him, and beseeching
his reverence to give him the benefit of his advice and
consolation.
Mr. Warrington did not know, to be suire, that to send
such a message to the parson was as if he said, ^ I am fallen
amongst the lions. Come down, my dear friend, into the
pit with me.’ Harry very likely thought Sampson’s
difficulties were over ; <Hr, more likely still, was so much
engrossed with his own affairs and perplexities, as to
bestow little thought upon his neighbour’s. Having sent
off his missive tibte captiye’s mind was somewhat more at
ease, and he condescended to call for breakfast, which
was brought to Mna presently. The attendant who served
Mm with his moroiug repast, adked him whether he would
order dinner, or take his meal at Mrs. Bailiff’s table with
some other gentlemen ? No. Mr. Warrington would not
order dinn^. He should quit the place before dinner-
time, he informed the chamberiain who waited on him
in that grim tavern. The man went away, thinking no
doubt that this was not the first young gentleman w^ho
had announced that he was going away ere two hours were
over. ‘ Well, if your honour dcm stay, there is good beef
and carrot at two o’clock,’ says the sceptic, and closes
the door on Mr. Harry and Ms solitary meditations.
Harry’s messenger to Mr, Sampson brought back a
message from that gentleman to say that he would be with
his patron as soon as might be ; but ten o’clock came,
eleven o’clock, noon, and no Sampson. No Sampson arrived,
but about twelve Gumbo with a portmanteau of his master’s
clothes, who flung himself, roaring with grief, at Harry’s
feet : amd \^ith a thousand vows of fidelity, expressed Mm-
self ready to die, to sell Mmself into slavery over again, to
do anything to rescue his beloved Master Harry from
CHAINS AND SLAVERY
475
this calamitous position- Harry was touched #ith the
lad’s expressions of affection, and told him to get up from
the ground where he was grovelling on his knees, embracing
his master’s. ‘ All you have to do, sir, is to give me my
clothes to dress, and to hold your tongue about this busings.
Mud you, not a word, sir, about it to anybody 1 ’ says
Mr. Warrington, severely.
‘ Oh no, sir, never to nobody ! ’ says Gumbo, looking most
solemnly, and proceeded to dress his master carefully, w’ho
had ne^ of a change and a toilette after his yesterday’s
sudden capture, and night’s dismal rest. Accordingly
Gumbo flung a dash of powder in Harry’s hair, and
arrayed his master carefully and elegantly, so that he made
Mr. Warrington look as fine and splendid as if he had been
stepping into his chair to go to St. James’s.
Indeed, all that love and servility could do Mr. Gumbo
faithfully did for his master, for whom he had an extreme
regard and attachment. But there were certain things
beyond Gumbo’s power. He could not undo things which
were done already ; and he could not help lying and
excusing himself when pressed upon points disagreeable
to himself.^
As for swearing not to say a word about his master’s
arrest— such an oath as that was impossible to keep :
for, with a heart full of ^ ^ef indeed, but with a tongue
that never could cease waging, bragging, joking, and
lying, Mr. Gumbo had announced the woful circumstance
to a prodigious number of his acquaintances already,
chiefly gentlemen of the shoulder-knot and worsted lace.
We have seen how he carried the news to Colonel
Lambert’s and Lord Wrotham’s servants : he had pro-
claimed it at the footman’s club to which he belonged, and
which was frequented by the gentlemen of some of the
first nobility. He had subsequently condescended to
partake of a mug of ale in Sir Miles Warrington’s butler’s
room, and there had repeated and embellished the story.
Then he had gone off to Madame Bernstein’s people, with
some of whom he was on terms of affectionate intercourse,
and had informed that domestic circle of his grief : and,
his master being captured, and there being no earthly
call for his personal services that evening. Gumbo had
stepped up to Lord Castlewood’s, and informed the gentry
there of the incident which had just come to pass. &
476
THE VmOINIANS
when, laying his hand on his heart, and with gushing
floods of tears, Gumbo says, in reply to his master’s
injunction, ‘ Oh, no, master ! nebber to nobody ! ’ we are
in a condition to judge of the degree of credibility which
ought to be given to the lad’s statement.
The black had long completed his master’s toilette:
the dreary breakfast was over : slow as the hours went to
the prisoner, still they were passing one after another,
but no Sampson came in accordance with the promise
sent in the morning. At length, some time after noon, there
arrived, not Sampson, but a billet from him, sealed with
a moist wafer, and with the ink almost yet wet. The
unlucky divine’s letter ran as follows :
Oh, sir, dear sir, I have done all that a man can at the command
and in the behalf of his patron ! You did not know, sir, to what
you were subjecting me, did you ? Else, if I was to go to prison,
why did I not share yours, and why am I in a lock-up house three
doors off t
Yes. Such is the fact. As I was hastening to you, knowing full
well the danger to which 1 was subject; — ^but what daixger will 1 not
affront at the call of such a benefactor as Mr. Warrington halh been
to me ? — was seized by two villains who had a writ against me,
and who have lodged me at Naboth’s, hard by, and so close to your
honour, that we could almost hear each other across the gardeu-
walis of tite respective houses where we are confined.
I had much and of importance to say, which I do not care to write
down on paper, regarding your affairs. May they mend I May
my cursed fortunes, too, better themselves, fe the prayer of
Your honour’s afflicted Chaplain in Ordinary,
J.S.
And now, as Mr. Samp^m refuses to speak, it will be our
duty to acquaint the reader with those matters whereof
the poor chaplain did not care to discourse on paper.
Gumbo’s loquacity had not reached so far as Long Acre,
and Mr. Sampson was ignorant of the extent of his patron’s
calamity, until he received Harry’s letter and messenger
from dbanoery Lane. The divine was still ardent with
gratitude for the service Mr. Warrington had just con-
ferred on him, and eager to find some means to succour
his distressed patron. He knew what a large sum Lord
Cfefcstlewood had won from his cousin, had dined in company
with his lordship on the day before, and now ran to Lord
Casllewood’s house, with a hope of arousing him to some
pity f(Mr Mr. Warrir^on. Sampson made a very eloquent
CHAINS AND SLAVERY
477
and touching speech to Lord Castlewood about his kins-
man’s misfortune, and spoke with a real kindness and
sympathy, which however failed to touch the nobleman
to whom he addressed himself.
My lord peevishly and curtly put a stop to the chaplain’s
passionate pleading. ‘ Did I not tell you, two days since,
when you came for money, that I was as poor as a beggar,
Sampson ? ’ said his lordship, ‘ and has anybody left me
a fortune since ? The little sum I won from my cousin
was swallowed up by others. I not only can’t help IVh*.
Warrington, but, as I pledge you my word, not being in the
least aware of Ids calamity, I had positively written to
him this morning to ask him to help me.’ And a letter
to this effect did actually reach Mr. Warrington from his
lodgings, whither it had l^en dispatched by the penny pc^t.
‘ I must get him money, my lord. I know he had scarcely
anything left in his pocket after relieving me. Were I to
pawn my cassock and bands, he must have money,’ cried
the chaplain.
* Amen. Gk) and pawn your bands, your cassock, any-
thing yoa please. Your enthusiasm does you credit,’ said
my lord, and resumed the reading of his paper, whilst, in
the deepest despondency, poor Sampson left him.
My I^y Maria meanwMe had heard that the chaplain
was with her brother, and o<mJectured what might be the
subject on which they had been talking. She seized upon
the parson as he issued from out his fruitless interview
with my lord. She drew him into the dining-room : the
strongest marks of grief and sympathy were in her counten-
ance. ‘ Tell me, what is this has happened to Mr. War-
rington ? ’ she asked.
‘ Your ladyship, then, knows ? * asked the chajdain.
‘ Have I not been in mortal anxiety ever since his servant
brought the dreadful news last night ? ’ asked my lady.
‘ We had it as we came from the opera — ^from my Lady
Yarmouth’s box — ^my lord, my Lady Castlewood, and I.’
‘ His lordship, then, did know ? ’ continued Sampson.
‘ Benson told the news when we came from the playhouse
to our tea,’ repeats Lady Maria.
The chaplain lost all patience and temper at such
duplicity. ‘ This is too bad,’ he said, with an oath ; and
he told Lady Maria of the conversation which he had just
had, with Lord Castlewood, and of the latter’s refusal
478
THE YmOINIA2!?S
to succour his cousin, after winning great sums of money
from him, and with much eloquence and feeling of Mr.
Warrington’s most generous behaviour to himself.
Tlien my Lady Maria broke out with a series of remarks
regarding her own family, which were by no means com-
plimentary to her own kith and kin. Although not
accustom^ to tell truth commonly, yet, when certain
families fall out, it is wonderful what a number of truths
they will tell about one another. With tears, imprecations,
I do not like to think how much strcmger language. Lady
Maria burst into a furious and impassioned tirade, in which
she touched upon the history of almost all her noble family.
She complimented the men and the ladies alike ; she
shrieked out interrc^atories to Heaven, inquiring why it
had made such (never mind what names she eddied
her brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, parents) ; and ein-
bold^ed witb wrath, she dashed at her broth^s library-
door, so shrill in her ouierks, so furioiK- in her demeanour,
that the alarmed chaplain, fearing the scene which might
ensue, made for the street.'
My lord, looMog up from the book or oth^ occupation
which engaged Mm, regarded the furious woman with some
surprise, .and selected a* good strmig oath to fling at her,
as it were, and check her onset.
But, wten roused, we have seen how courageous Maria
could be. Afraid as she was ordinarily of her brother,
she was not in a mood to be frightened now by any lan-
piage of abuse or sarcasm at his command.
* 80, my lord ! ’ she called out ; ‘ you sit down with him
in private to cards and pigeon him ! You get the poor boy’s
last shilling, and you won’t give Hm a guinea out of his
own winnings now he is penniless I ’
‘ So that infernal chaplain has be^ telling tales ! ’ says
my lord.
* Dismiss him : do ! Pay him his wages, and let him
go, — ^he will be glad enough ! ’ cries Maria.
‘ I keep him to marry one of my sisters, in case he is
wanted,’ says Castlewood, glaring at her.
* What can the women be in a family where there are
such men ? ’ says the lady.
^ Mffe(MpementJ ’ says my lord, with a shrug of his shoulder.
‘What can we be, when our fathers and brothers are what
they aare ? We are bad enough, but what are you ? I say.
CHAINS AND SLAVERY
479
you neither have courage — ^no, nor honour, nor common
feeling. As your equals won’t play with you, my Lord
Castlewood, you must take this poor lad out of Virginia,
your own kinsman, and pigeon him ! Oh, it’s a shame —
a shame \ ’
‘ We are all playing our own game, I suppose. Haven’t
you played and won one, Maria ? Is it you that are squeamish
all of a sudden about the poor lad from Virginia ? Has
Mr. Harry cried off, or has your ladyship got a better offer ? ’
cried my lord. ‘ If you won’t have him, one of the War-
rington girls will, I promise you ; and the old Methodist
woman in HiU Street wiU give him the choice of either.
Are you a fool, Maria Esmond ? A greater fool, I mean,
than in common ? ’
‘ I should be a fool if I thought that either of my brothers
could act like an honest man, Eugene ! ’ said Maria. ‘I am
a fool to expect that you will be other than you are ;
that if you find any relative in disteess you will help him ;
that if you can meet with a victim you won’t fleece him.’
‘ Eleece him ! Psha ! What folly are you talking ! Have
you .not seen, from the course which the lad has been
running for months past, how he would end ? If I had not
wm his money, some other would. I never grudged thee
thy little plans regarding him. Why shouldst thou fly
in a pa^on, because I have just put out my hand to take
what he was offering to aU the woiid t I reason with you,
I don’t know why, Maria. You should be old enou^ to
understand reason, at any rate. You think this money
belonged of right to Lady Maria Warrington and her
children ? I tell you that in three months more every
shilling would have found its way to “White’s macco-table,
and that it is much better spent in paying my debts. So
much for your ladyship’s anger, and tears, and menaces, and
naughty language. See ! I am a good brother, and repay
them with reason and kind words.’
‘ My good brother might have given a little more than
kind words to the lad from whom he has just taken hun-
dreds,’ interposed the sister of this affectionate brother.
‘ Great Heavens, Maria 1 Don’t you see that even out of
this affair, unpleasant as it seems, a clever woman may make
her advantage,’ cries my lord. Maria said she failed to
comprehend.
‘ As thus. I name no names ; I meddle in no person’s
480 THE VmGINIANS
bo^ness, having quite enough to do to manage my own
cursed affairs. But suppose I happen to know of a case in
another family which may be applicable to ours. It is this.
A green young lad of tolerable expectations comes up from
the country to his friends in town — ^never mind from what
country : never mind to what town. An elderly female
relative, who has been dragging her spinsterhood about
these — ^how many years shall we say ? — extorts a promise
of marriage from my young gentleman, never mind on what
conditions.’
‘ My lord, do you want to insult your sister as well as
to injure your cousin ? ’ asks Maria.
‘ My good child, did I say a single word about fleecing,
or cheating, or pigeoning, or did I fly into a passion when
you insult^ me? I mow the allowanee that must be
made for your temper, ^d the natural folly of your sex.
I say I treated you withsdEt words^ — go on with my story.
The ddecly relative extracts a promise of marriage from
the young lad, which my gentleman is quite unwilling to
keep. No, he rron’t keep it. He is utterly tired of his
eld^ly relative : he will plead his mother’s refusal : he
will do anything to get out of his promise.’
‘ Yes ; if he was one of us Esmonds, my Lord Castlewood.
But this is a man of honour we are speaking of,’ cried Maria,
who, I suppose, admired truth in others, however little
she saw it in her own family.
‘ I do not contradict either of my dear sister’s remarks.
One of us would fling the promise to the winds, especially
as it does not exist in writmg.’
* My lord I ’ gasps out Maria.
* Bah ! I know all. That little coup of Tunbridge was
played by the aunt Bemstdn with excellent skill. The
old woman is the best man of our family. While you were
arrested, your boxes were searched for the Mohock’s letters
to you. \^en you were let loose, the letters had disappeared,
and you said nothing, like a wise woman as you are some-
times. You still hanker after your Cherokee. Soit, A
woman of your mature experience knows the value of a
husband. What is this little loss of two or three hundred
pounds ? ’
‘ Not more than three hundred, my lord ? ’ interposes
Majia,
‘ Eh i never mind a hundred or two, more or less.
CHAINS AND SLAVEBY
481
What is this loss at cards ? A mere bagatelle ! You are
playing for a principality. You want your kingdom in
Virginia ; and if you listen to my opinion, the little mis-
fortune which has happened to your swain is a piece of great
good fortune to you.’
‘ I don’t understand you, my lord.’
* C'est ^ssible ; but sit down, and I will explain what
I mean in a manner suited to your capacity.’ And so
Maria Esmond, who had advanced to her brother like
a raging lion, now sat down at his feet like a gentle
lamb.
Madame de Bernstein was not a little moved at the news
of her nephew’s arrest, which hh*. Gumbo brought to
Clarges Street on the night of the calamity. She would
have cross-examined the black, and had further particulars
respecting Harry’s mishap ; but Mr. Gumbo, anxious to
carry his intelligence to other quarters, had vanished when
her ladyship sent for him. Her temper was not improved
by the news, or by the sleepless night which she spent.
I do not envy the dame de compagme who played cards with
her, or the servant who had to lie in her chamber. An
ai;rest . was an everyday occurrence, as she knew very
well as a woman of the world. Into w^hat dif&culties had
her scapegrace of a nephew fallen ? How much money
should she be called upon to pay to release him ? And
had he run through all his own ? Provided he had not
committed himself very deeply, she was quite disposed
to aid him. She liked even his extravagances and follies.
He was the only being in the world on whom, for long,
long years, that weary woman had been able to bestow
a little natural affection. So, on their different beds, she
and Harry were lying wakeful together ; and quite early
in the morning the messengers w^hich each sent forth on the
same business may have crossed each other.
Madame Bernstein’s messenger was dispatched to the
chambers of her man of business, Mr. Draper, with an
order that Mr. D. should ascertain for what sums Mr. War-
rington had been arrested, and forthwith repair to the
baroness. Draper’s emissaries speedily found out that
Mr. Warrington w^as locked up close beside them, and the
amount of detainers against him so far. Were there other
creditors, as no doubt there, were, they would certainly
R
YIRGIXIAKS
THE VIRGINIANS
clc^ upon him when they were made acquainted with his
imprisonment.
To Mr. Sparks, the jeweller, for those unlucky presents,
so much ; to the landlord in Bond Street, for board, fire,
lodging, so much : these w’ere at present the only claims
against Mr. Warrington, Mr. Draper found. He was ready
at a signal from her ladyship to settle them at a moment.
The jeweller’s account ought especially to be paid, for
Mr. Harry had acted most imprudently in taking goods
from Mr. Sparks on credit, and pledging them with a pawn-
broker. He must have been under some immediate
pressure for money; intended to redeem the goods
immediately, meant nothing but what was honourable of
course ; but the affair wotdd have an ugly look, if made
public, and had better be settled out of hand. ‘ There
cannot be the least difficulty regarding a thousand pounds
more or less, for a gentleman of Mr. Warrington’s rank and
expectations,’ said Madame de Bernstein. Not the least :
h^ ladyship knew very well that there were funds belonging
to Mr. Warrington, cm which money could be at once
raised with her ladyship’s guarantee.
Should he go that instant and settle the matter with
Me^rs. Amos ? Mr. Hany might be back to dine with
h^ at two, and to confound the people at the clubs, who
no doubt rejoicing over his misfortunes, said the com-
passionate Mr. Draper.
But the Baroness had other views. ‘ I tiiink, my good
Mr. Draper,’ she said, ‘that my young gentleman has
sown wild oats enough ; and when he comes out of prison,
I should like him to come out clear, and without any
liabilities at all. You are not aware of all his.’
‘No gentleman ever does tell all his debts, madam,’
says Mr. Draper ; ‘ no one I ever had to deal with.’
‘ There is one which the silly boy has contracted, and
from which he ought to be releas^, Mr. Draper, You
remember a little circumstance which occurred at Tun-
bridge Weils in the autumn ? About which I sent up my
man Case to you ? ’
‘ When your ladyship pleases to recall it, I remember it
— ^not otherwise,’ says Mr. Draper with a bow. ‘ A lawyer
should be like a Popish confessor, — what is told him is
a secret for ever, and for everybody.’ So we must not
whisper Madame Bernstein’s secret to Mr. Draper ; but
CHAINS AND SLAVERY 48 S
the reader may perhaps guess it from the lawyer’s conduct
subsequently.
The lawyer felt pretty certain that ere long he would
receive a summons from the poor young prisoner in
Cursitor Street, and waited for that invitation before he
visited Mr. Warrington. Six-and-thirty hours passed ere
the invitation came, during which period Harry passed the
dreariest two days which he ever remembered to have spent.
There was no want of company in the look-up house, the
bailiff’s rooms were nearly always full ; but Harry preferred
the dingy solitude of his own room to the society round his
lady’s table, and it was only on the second day of his
arrest, and when his purse was emptied by the heavy
charges of the place, that he made up his mind to apply
to Draper. He dispatched a letter then to the lawyer
at the Temple, informing him of his plight, and desiring
him, in an emphatic postscript, not to say one word about
the matter to his aunt Madame de Bemst^n.
He had made up his mind not to apply to the old lady
except at the v^ last extremity. She had treated him
with so much kindness, that he revolted from the notion of
trespassing on her bounty, and for a while tried to please
himself with the idea that he might get out of durance
without her even knowing that any misfortune at all
had befallen him. There seemed to him something hximiliat-
ing in petitioning a woman for money. No ! He would
apply first to his male friends, all of whom might help him
if they would. It had been his intention to send Sampson
to one or other of them as a negotiator, had not the poor
fellow been captured on his. way to succour his friend.
Sampson gone, Harry was obliged to have recourse to
his own negro servant, who w^as kept on the trot all day
between Temple Bar and the Court end of the town with
letters from his unlucky master. Firstly, then, Harry
sent off a most private and confidential letter to his kinsman
the Right Honourable the Earl of Castlewood, saying
how he had been cast into prison, and begging Castlewood
to lend him the amount of the debt. ‘Please to keep
my application, and the cause of it, a profound secret from
the dear ladies,’ wrote poor Harry.
‘ Was ever anything so unfortunate ? ’ wrote back Lord
Castlewood, in reply. ‘ I suppose you have not got
my note of yesterday ? It must be lying at your lodgings,
484
THE VIRGINIANS
where — I hope in Heaven I — ^you will soon be, too. My
dear Mr. Warrington, thinking you were as rich as Croesus
— otherwise I should never have sat down to cards with
you — I wrote to you yesterday, begging you to lend me.
some money to appease some hungry duns whom I don’t
know how else to pacify. My poor fellow ! every shilling
of your money went to them, and but for my peer’s privilege
I might be hob-and-nob with you now in your dungeon.
May you soon escape from it, is the prayer of your sincere
Castlbwood.’
This was the result of application number one : and we
may imagine that Mr. Harry read the reply to his petition
with ratW a blank face. Never mind ! There was kind,
jolly Uncle Warrington. Only last night his aunt had ki^ed
him and loved him like a son. His uncle had called down
Messings on his head, and prol^sed quite a paternal regard
for him. With a feeling of shyne^ a^ modesty in presence
of those virtuous parents and family, Harry had never
said a word about his wild doings, or his horse-racings, or
his gamblings, his extravagances. It must all out now.
He must oonfess himself a Prodigal and a Sinner, and ask
for thdr forgiveness and aid- So Prodigal sat down and
composed a penitent I^ter to Unde Warrington, and
exposed his s^ case, and besought him to come to the
r^ue. Was not that a bitter nut to crack for o\ir haughty
young Virginian ? Hours of mortification and profound
thought as to the pathos of the composition did Harry
pass over that letter ; sheet after sheet of Mr. Amos’s
mxpence a sheet letter-paper did he tear up before the
missive was complete, with which poor blubbering Gumbo
(much vilified by the bailiff’s followers and parasites,
whom he was robbing, as they conceived, of their per-
quisites) went his way.
At evening the faithful negro brought back a thick
Iditer in his aunt’s handwriting. Harry opened the
letter with a trembling hand. He thought it was full of
bank-notes. Ah, me ! it contained a sermon {Daniel in
Ike Lions^ Den) by Mr. Whitfield and a letter from Lady
Warrington ^ying that, in Sir Miles’s absence from London,
she was in the habit of opening his letters, and hence, per-
force, was become acquainted with a fact which she deplored
from her inmost sovl to learn, namely, that her nephew
Warrington had been extravagant and was in debt. Of
CHAINS AND SLAVERY
485
course, in the absence of Sir Miles, she could not hope to
have at command such a sum as that for which Mr. War-
rington wrote, but she sent him her heartfelt 'prayers^ her
deepest commiseration^ and a discourse by dear Mr. Whit-
field, which would comfort him in his present (alas ! she
feared not undeserved) calamity. She added profuse
references to particular Scriptural chapters which would
do him good. If she might speak of things worldly she
said at such a moment, she would hint to Mr. Warrington
that his epistolary orthography w^as anything but correct.
She w^ould not fail for her part to comply with his express
desire that his dear cousim should know nothing of this
most painful circumstance, and with every wish for his
w^elfare here and elsewhere, she subscribed herself his
loving aunt, Margaret Warrington'.
Poor Harry hid his face between his hands, and sat for
a while with elbows on the greasy table blankly staring into
the candle before him. The bailiff’s servant, who w'as
touched by his handsome face, suggested a mug of beer for
his honour, but Harry could not drink, nor eat the meat
that was placed before liim. Gumbo how^ever could, w^hose
grief did not deprive him of appetite, and who, blubbering
the while, finished all the beer, and all the bread and the
meat. Meanwhile, Harry had finished another letter,
with w^hich Gumbo was commissioned to start again, and
away the faithful creature ran upon his errand.
Gumbo ran as far as White’s Club, to which house he
was ordered in the first instance to carry the letter, and
where he found the person to whom it w’as addressed.
Even the prisoner, for whom time passed so slowly, was
surprised at the celerity with, which his negro had performed
his errand.
At least the letter which Harry expected had not taken
long to wTite. ‘ My lord wrote it at the hall-porter’s desk,
whSe I stood there then with Mr. Morris,’ said Gumbo,
and the letter w^as to this effect : —
Dear Sib, — I am sorry I cannot comply with your wish, as I’m
short of money at present, having paid large sums to you as well
as to other gentlemen.
Yours obediently,
March and R.
Henry Warrington, Esq.
486
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Bid Lord March say anything 1 ’ asked Mr. Warrington,
looking very pale.
‘ He say it was the coolest thing he ever knew. So did
Mr. Morris. He showed him your letter, Master Harry,
Yes, and Mr, Morris say, “ Bam his imperence ! ” ’ add^
Gumbo.
Bfenry burst into such a yeU of laughter that his landlord
thought he had good news, and ran in in alarm lest he was
about to lose his tenant. But by this time poor Harry’s
laughter was over, and he w^as flung down in his chair
gazing dismally in the fire.
‘ I — I should like to smoke a pipe of Virginia,’ he groaned.
Gumbo burst into tears : he flung himself at Harry’s
knees. He kissed his knees and his hands. ‘ Oh, master, my
dear master, what will they say at home ? ’ he sobbed out.
The jailer was touched at the sight of the black’s grief and
fidelity, and at Harry’s pale face as he sank back in his
chair, quite overcome and beaten by his calamity.
* Your honour ain’t eat anything these tw’o days,’ the man
said, in a voice of rough pity. ‘Pluck up a little, sir.
You aren’t the first gentleman who has been in and out
of grief before this. Let me go down and get you a glass
of punch and a little supper.’
‘ My good friend,’ said Harry, a sickly smile playing over
his white face, ‘ you pay ready money for everything in
this house, don’t you ? I must tell you that I haven’t
a shilling left to buy a dish of meat. All the money I have
I want for letter-paper.’
‘ Oh, master, my master ! ’ roared out Gumbo. ‘ Look
here, my dear Master Harry ! Here’s plenty of money —
here’s twenty-three five-guineas. Here’s gold moidore
from Virginia — ^here — ^no, not that — ^that’s keepsakes the
girls gave me. Take everything — everything. I go sell
myseK to-morrow morning ; but here’s plenty for to-night,
master ! ’
‘ God bless you, Gumbo ! ’ Harry said, laying his hand
on the lad’s woolly head. ‘ You are free if I am not, and
Heaven forbid I should not take the offered help of such
a friend as you. Bring me some supper : but the pipe
tofo, mind — the pipe too ! ’ And Harry ate his supper
with a relish : and even the turnkeys and bailiff’s followers,
when Gumbo went out of the house that night, shook hands
with Mm, and ever after treated him well.
487
CHAPTER XLVII
VISITORS IN TROUBLE
Gumbo’s generous and
feeling conduct soothed
and softened the angry
heart of his master, and
Harry’s second night in
the spunging-house was
passed more pleasantly
than the first. Somebody
at least there was to
help and compassionate
with him. Still, though
softened in that one
particular spot, Hariy’s
heart w^as hard and proud
towards almost all the
rest of the world. They
were selfish and ungene-
rous, he thought. His
pious Aunt Warrington,
his lordly friend March, his cynical cousin Oastlewood,
— all had been tried, and were found wanting. Not
to avoid twenty years of prison would he stoop to ask
a favour of one of them again. Fool that he had
been, to believe in their promises, and confide in their
friendsliip ! There ’was no friendship in this cursed, cold,
selfish country. He would leave it. He vrould trust no
Englishman, great or small. He would go to Germany,
and make a campaign vith the king ; or he would go home
to Virginia, bury himself in the woods there, and hunt ail
day ; become his mother’s factor and land-steward ;
marry Polly Broadbent, or Fanny Mountain ; turn regular
tobacco-grower and farmer ; do anything, rather than
remain amongst these English fine gentlemen. So he
arose with an outwardly cheerful countenance, but an
angry spirit ; and at an early hour in the morning the
faithful Gumbo was in attendance in his master’s chamber,
48S
THE VIRGINIANS
having come from Bond Street, and brought Mi\ Harry’s
letters thence. ^ I wanted to bring some more clothes,’
hon^t Gumbo said ; ‘ but Mr. Ruff, the landlord, he
wouldn’t let me bring no more.’
Harry did not care to look at the letters : he opened
one, two, three ; they were all bills. He opened a fourth ;
it was from the landlord, to say that he would allow no
more of Mr. Warrington’s things to go out of the house, —
that unless his bill w’as paid he should sell Mr. W.’s goods
and pay himself ; and that his black man must go and sleep
elsewhere. He would hardly let Gumbo take his own clothes
and portmanteau away. The black said he had found
refuge elsewhere — ^with some friends at Lord Wrotham’s
house. * With Colonel Lambert’s people,’ says Mr. Gumbo,
looking very hard at his master. ^ And Miss Hetty she
fall down in a faint, when she hear you taken up ; and
Mr. Lambert, he very good man, and he say to me this
morning, he say, ** Gumbo, you tell your master if he want
me he send to me, and I come to him.” ’
Harry was touched when he heard that Hetty had been
afflicted by his misfortune. He did not believe Gumbo’s
story about her fainting ; he was accustomed to translate
his black’s language and to allow for exaggeration. But
when Gumbo spoke of the colonel the young Virginian’s
spirit was darkened again. ‘ I send to Lambert,’ he
thought, grinding his teeth, ‘ the man who insulted me,
and flung my presents back in my face 1 If I were
starving I would not ask him for a crust ! ’ And presently,
being dressed, Mr. Warrington called for his breakfast, and
dispatched Gumbo with a brief note to Mr. Draper in the
Temple requiring that gentleman’s attendance.
‘The note was as haughty as if he was writing to one
of his negroes, and not to a free-born English gentleman,’
Draper said ; whom indeed Harry had always treated
with insufferable condescension. ‘It’s all very well for
a fine gentleman to give himself airs ; but for a fellow
in a spunging-house 1 Hang him ! ’ says Draper, ‘ I’ve
a great mind not to go ! ’ Nevertheless, Mr. Draper did
go, and found Mr. Warrington in his misfortune even more
arr<^nt than he had ever been in the' days of his utmost
prosperity, Mr. W. sat on his bed, like a lord, in a splendid
gown with his hair dressed. He motioned his black man
to fetch him a chair.
VISITORS m TROUBLE
489
‘Excase me, madam, but such haughtiness and airs
I ain’t accustomed to ! ’ said the outraged attorney.
‘ Take a chair and go on with your story, my good IVIr.
Draper,’ said Madame de Bernstein, smiling, to whom
lie went to report proceedings. She was amused at the
lawyer’s anger. She liked her nephew for being insolent
in adversity.
The course which Draper was to pursue in his interview
with Harry had been arranged betw^een the baroness and
her man of business on the previous day. Draper was
an able man, and likely in most cases to do a client good
service ; he failed in the present instance because he was
piqued and angry, or, more likely still, because he could
not understand the gentleman with whom he had to deal.
I presume that he who casts his eye on the present page
is the most gentle of readers. Gentleman as you unques-
tionably are then, my dear sir, have you not remarked
in your dealings with people who are no gentlemen, that
you offend them not Imowing the how or the why ? So
the man who is no gentleman offends you in a thousand
ways of w’hich the poor creature has no idea himself. He
does or says something which provokes your scorn. He
perceives that scorn (being ahvays on the watch, and
uneasy about himself, his manners and behaviour) and
he rages. You speak to him naturally, and he fancies
still that you are sneering at him. You have indifference
towards him, but he hates you and hates you the worse
because you don’t care. ‘ Gumbo, a chair to Mr. Draper I ’
says Mr. Warrington, folding his brocaded dressing-gowm
round his legs as he sits on the dingy bed. ‘Sit down,
if you please, and let us talk my business over. Much
obliged to you for coming so soon in reply to my message.
Had you heard of this piece of iU luck before ? ’
Mr. Draper had heard of the circumstance. ‘ Bad news
travels quick, ‘Mr. Warrington,’ he said ; ‘and I w^as eager
to offer my humble services as soon as ever you should
require them. Your friends, your family, will be much
pained that a gentleman of your rank should be in such
a position.’
‘ I have been very imprudent, Mr. Draper. I have lived
beyond my means.’ (Mr*. Draper bowed.) ‘I played in
company with gentlemen who were much richer than myself,
and a cursed run of ill luck has carried away all my ready
B. 3
490
THE VIRGINIANS
money, leaving me with liabilities to the amount of five
hundred poun^ and more.’
^ Five hundred now in the office,’ says Air. Draper,
‘Well, this is such a trifle that I thought by sending
to one or two friends, yesterday, I could have paid my
debt and gone home mthout further to do. I have been
mistaken; and will thank you to have the kindness to
put me in the way of raising the money, as soon as may be.’
Mr. Draper said ‘ Hm ! ’ and pulled a very grave and
long face.
‘ Why, sir, it can be done ! ’ says Mr. Warrington, staring
at the lawyer.
It not only could be done, but Mr. Draper had proposed
to Madame Bernstein on the day before instantly to pay
the money, and release Mr. Warrington. That lady had
declared she intended to make the young gentleman her
heir. In common with the rest of the world, Draper
believed Harry’s hereditary property in Virginia to be
as great in money-value as in extent. He had notes in
his pocket, and Madame Bernstein’s order to pay them under
certain conditions: nevertheless, when Harry said, ‘It
can be done I ’ Draper pulled his long face, and said,
‘ It can be done in time, sir ; but it will require a consider-
able time. To touch the property in England which is
yours on Mr. George Warrington’s death, we must have
the event proved, the trustees released : and who is to
do either ? Lady Esmond Warrington in Virginia, of
course, will not allow her son to remain in prison, but we
must wait six months before we hear from her. Has your
Bristol agent any authority to honour your drafts ? ’
‘ He is only authorized to pay me two hundred pounds
a year,’ says Mr. Warrington. ‘I suppose I have no
resource, then, but to apply to my aunt, Madame de
Bernstein. She will be my security.’
* Her ladyship wiU do anything for you, sir ; she has
said so to me, often and often,’ said the lawyer ; ‘ and
if she gives the word, at that moment you can walk out of
this pl^e.’
‘ Go to her, then, from me, Mr. Draper. I did not want
to have troubled my relations : but rather than continue
in tMs horrible needless imprisonment, I must speak to
h^.* Say where I am, and what has befallen me. Disguise
nothing I And tell her, that I confide in her affection and
VISITOKS IN TROUBLE
kindness for me to release me from this — this disgrace/
and Mr. Warrington’s voice shook a little, and he passed
his hand across his eyes.
‘ Sir/ says Mr. Draper, eyeing the young man, * I was
with her ladyship yesterday, w'hen we talked over the w’hole
of this here most unpleasant — w’on’t say as you do,
disgraceful business.’
‘ What do you mean, sir ? Does Madame de Bernstein
know of my misfortune ? ’ asked Harry.
‘ Every circumstance, sir ; the pawning the w’atches,
and all/
Harry turned burning red. ‘ It is an unfortunate
business, the pawning them watches and things which
you had never paid for,’ continued the lawyer. The young
man started up from the bed, looking so fierce that Draper
felt a little alarmed.
‘ It may lead to litigation and unpleasant remarks being
made in court, sir. Them barristers respect nothing ; and
when they get a feller in the box
‘ Great Heaven, sir, you don’t suppose a gentleman of
my rank can’t take a w’atch upon credit without intending
to cheat the tradesman ? ’ cried Harry, in the greatest
agitation.
‘ Of course you meant everything that’s honourable ;
only, you see, the law mayn’t happen to think so,’ says
Mr. Draper, winking his eye. ‘ (Hang the supercilious
beast : I touch him there !) Your aunt says it’s the most
imprudent thing ever she heard of — to call it by no worse
name.’
‘ You call it by no worse name yourself, Mr. Draper ? ’
says Harry, speaking each word very slow, and evidently
trying to keep a command of himself.
Draper did not like his looks. ‘ Heaven forbid that I
should say anything as between gentleman and gentleman, —
but between me and my client, it’s my duty to say, Sir,
you are in a very unpleasant scrape,” just as a doctor
would have to tell his patient, “ Sir, you are very ill.” ’
* And you can’t help me to pay this debt off, — ^and you
have come only to tell me that I may be accused of roguery ? ’
says Harry.
‘ Of obtaining goods under false pretences ? Most
undoubtedly, yes. I can’t help it, sir. Don’t look as if
you would knock me down. (Curse him, I am making
492
THE VIRGIHIANS
him wince, though.) A young gentleman, who has only
two hundr^ a year from his ma, orders diamonds and
watches, and takes ’em to a pawnbroker. You ask me
what people will think of such behaviour, and I tell you
honestly. Don’t be angry with me, Mr. Warrington.’
‘ Go on, sir 1 ’ says Harry, with a groan.
The lawyer thought the day was his own. ‘ But you
ask if I can’t help to pay this debt off ? And I say Yes —
and that here is the money in my pocket to do it now,
if you like — not mine, sir, my honoured client’s, your
aunt, Lady Bernstein. But she has a right to impose her
conditions, and I’ve brought ’em with me.’
‘ Tell them, sir,’ says Mr. Harry.
‘ They are not hard. Th^y are only for your own good :
and if you say Yes, we can call a hackney-coach, and go
to Claires Street together, which I have promisi^ to go
there, whether you will mr no. Mr. Warrington, I name
no names, but there was a question of marriage between
you and a certain party.’
‘ All I ’ said Harry ; and Ms countenance looked more
cheerful than it had yet done.
‘ To that marriage my noble client, the baroness, is most
averse — ^having other views for yotl, and thinking it w^ill
be your ruin to marry a party, — of noble birth and title
it is true ; but, excuse me, not of first-rate character,
and so much older than yourself. You had given an
imprudent promise to that party.’
‘ Yes ; and she has it still,’ says Mr. Warrington.
‘ It Im been recovered- She dropped it by an accident
at Tunbridge,’ says Mr. Draper, ‘so my client informed
me ; indeed her Myship showed it me, for the matter of
that. It was wTote in bl ’
‘ Never mind, sir t ’ cries Henry, turning almost as red
as the ink wMch he had used to wTite his absurd promise,
of wMeh the madness and folly had smote him with shame
a thousand times over.
‘ At the same time letters, wrote to you, and compromising
a noble family, were recovered,’ continues the lawyer.
‘ You had lost ’em. It was no fault of yours. You were
away when they were found again. You may say that
thal^ noble family, that you yourself, have a friend such
as few young men have. WeU, sir, there’s no eartHy
promise po bind you — only so many idle words said over
7ISIT0BS IN TROCJBLE
m
a bottle, which very likely any gentleman may forget.
Say you won’t go on with this marriage — ^give me and my
noble friend your word of honour. Cry off, I say, Mr. W. I
Don’t be such a d fool, saving your presence, as to
marry an old woman w^ho has jilted scores of men in her
time. Say the word, and I step downstairs, pay every
shilling against you in the office, and put you down in my
coach, either at your aunt’s or at Elite’s Club, if you
like, with a couple of hundred in your pocket. Say yes ;
and give us your hand ! There’s no use in sitting grinning
behind these bars all day ! ’
So far Mr. Draper had had the best of the talk. Harry
only longed himself to be rid of the engagement from which
his aunt wanted to free him. His foolish flame for Maria
Esmond had died out long since. If she would release
him, how thankful wnuld he be ! ‘ Come ! give us your
hand, and say done ! ’ says the lawyer, with a knowing
wink. ‘ Don’t stand shilly-shallying, sir. Law bless you,
Mr. W., if I had married everybody I promised, I should
be like the Grand Turk, or Captain Macheath in the play ! ’
The lawyer’s familiarity disgusted Harry, who shrank
from Draper, scarcely knowing that he did so. He folded
his dressing-gown round him, and stepped back from the
other’s proffered hand. ‘Give me a little time to think
of the matter, if you please, Mr. Draper,’ he said, ‘ and have
the goodness to come to me again in an hour.’
‘ Very good, sir, very good, sir ! ’ says the lawyer, biting
his lips, and, as he seized up his hat, turning very red.
‘ Most parties would not want an hour to consider about
such an offer as I make you : but I suppose my time
must be yours, and ITl come again, and see whether you
are to go or to stay. Good morning, sir, good morning : ’
and he went his way, growling curses down the stairs.
‘ Won’t take my hand, w^on’t he ? Will tell me in an hour’s
time 1 Hang his impudence ! I’ll show him what an
hour is ! ’
Mr. Draper went to his chambers in dudgeon then ;
bullied his clerks all round, and sent off a messenger to
the baroness,- to say that he had waited on the young gentle-
man, who had demanded a little time for consideration,
which was for form’s sake, as he had no doubt ; the lawyer
then saw clients, transacted business, went out to his
dinner in the most leisurely manner ; and then finally
494
THE VIRGINIANS
turned his steps towards the neighbouring Cursitor Street.
* Hell at home when I call, the haughty beast ! ’ says
Draper, with a sneer. ‘ The Fortunate Youth in his room ? ’
the lawyer asked of the sheriffs officer’s aide de camp who
came to open the double doors.
‘ Mr. Warrington is in his apartment,’ said the gentleman,
‘ but ’ and here the gentleman winked at ]\&. Draper,
and laid his hand on his nose.
* But what, Mr. Paddy from Cork ? ’ says the lawyer.
* My name is Costigan ; me f amilee is noble, and me
neetive place is the Irish methrawpolis, Mr. Six-and-eight-
pence ! ’ said the janitor, scowling at Draper. A rich
odour of spirituous liquors filled the little space between the
double doors where he held the attorney in conversation.
‘ Confound you, sir, let me pass I ’ bawled out Mr. Draper.
‘I can hear you perfectly well, Six-and-eightpence,
except your A’s, which you dthrop out of your conversation.
I’ll thank ye not to call neems, me good friend, or me
fingers and your nose will have to make an intimate hic-
quaintanee. Walk in, sir ! Be polite for the future to
your shupariors in birth and manners, though they me
be your infariors in temporary station. Confound the
kay ! Walk in, sir, I say ! Madam, I have the honour
of saluting ye most respectfully 1 ’
A lady with her face covered with a capuchin, and further
hidden by her handkerchief, uttered a little exclamation
as of alarm as she came down the stairs at this instant
and hurried past the lawyer. He was pressing forward
to look at her — ^for Mr. firaper was very cavaHer in his
manners to women — ^but the bailiffs follower thrust his
leg between Draper and the retreating lady, crying, ‘ Keep
your own distance, if you plaise I This way, madam !
I at once recognized your ladysh Here he closed the
door on Draper’s nose, and left that attorney to find his
own way to his client upstairs.
At six o’clock that evening the old Baroness de Bernstein
was pacing up and down her drawing [-room with her] crutch,
and for ever running to the window when the noise of a coach
was heard passing in Clarges Street. She had delayed her
dirmer from hour to hour : she who scolded so fiercely, on
ordinary occasions, if her cook was five minutes after his
time. She had ordered two covers to be laid, plate to be set
out, and some extra dishes to be prepared as if for a little
VISIXORS IN TROUBLE
495
feie. Four — five o’clock passed, and at six she looked from
the window, and a coach actually stopped at her door.
* Mr. Draper ’ w^as announced, and entered bowing pro-
foundly.
The old lady trembled on her stick. ‘ Where is the boy ? *
she said quickly. ‘ I told you to bring him, sir ! How
dare you come without him ? ’
‘ It is not my fault, madam, that Mr. Warrington refuses
to come.’ And Draper gave his version of the interview
which had just taken place betw’een himself and the young
Virginian.
CHAPTER XLVIII
AN APPASmON
ING off in his wrath
from his morning’s con-
versation with Harry,
Mr. Draper thought he
heard the young prisoner
speak behind him ; and,
indeed, Harry had risen,
and uttered a half-
exclamation to call the
lawyer back. But he
w^as proud, and the
other offended : Harry
checked his w^ords, and
Draper did not choose
to stop. It w^ounded
Harry’s pride to be
obliged to humble himself before the lawyer, and to have
to yield from mere lack and desire of money. ‘ An hour
hence will do as w^ell,’ thought Harry, and lapsed sulkily
on to the bed again. No, he did not care for Maria
Esmond. No : he was ashamed of the way in which
he had been entrapped into that engagement. A wily
and experienced w^oman, she had cheated his boyish
ardour. She had taken unfair advantage of him, as her
brother had at play. They w^ere his owm flesh and blood,
and they ought to have spared him. Instead, one and
THE VIRGINIANS
m
the other had made a prey of him, and had used him for
their selfish ends. He thought how they had betrayed
the rights of hospitality : how they had made a victim
of the young kinsman who came confiding within their
gates. His heart was sore wounded : his head sank
back on his pUlow : bitter tears wetted it. ‘ Had they
come to Virginia,’ he thought, * I had given them a different
welcome ! ’
He was roused from this mood of despondency by Gumbo’s
grinning face at his door, who said a lady was come to see
Master Harry, and behind the lad came the lady in the
capuchin, of whom we have just made mention. Harry
sat up, pale and haggard, on his bed. The lady, with
a sob, and almost ere the servant-man withdrew, ran
towards the young prisoner, put her arms round his neck
with real emotion and a maternal tenderness, sobbed over
his pale cheek and kissed it in the midst of plentiful tears,
and cried out —
‘ Oh, my Harry ! Did I ever, ever think to see thee
here ? ’
He started back, scared as it seemed at her presence, but
^ sank down at the bedside, and seized his feverish hand,
and embraced Mb knees. She had a real regard and tender-
ness for him. The wretched place in which she found
him, his wretched look, filled her heart with a sincere love
and pity.
‘ I — ^I thought none of you would come ! ’ said poor
Harry, with a groan.
More tears, more kisses of the hot young hand, more
clasps and pressure with hem, were the lady’s reply for
a moment or two.
‘ Oh, my dear ! my dear ! I cannot bear to think of thee
in misery,’ she sobb^ out.
Hardened though it might be, that heart w^as not all
marble — ^that dreary life not all desert. Harry’s mother
could not have been fonder, nor her tones more tender
than those of his kinswoman now kneeling at his feet.
‘ Some of the debts, I fear, were owing to my extrava-
gance I ’ she said (and this was true). ‘ You bought
trink^ and jewels in order to give me pleasure. Oh,
how I hate them now ! I little thought I ever could !
I have brought them all with me, and more trinkets — ^here !
and h^ I and all the money I have in the world ! ’
AN APPARITION
497
And she poured brooches, rings, a watch, and a score
or so of guineas into Harry’s lap. The sight of which
strangely agitated and immensely touched the young man.
‘ Dearest, kindest cousin ! ’ he sobbed out.
His lips found no more words to utter, but yet no doubt
they served to express his gratitude, his affection, his
emotion.
He became quite gay presently, and smiled as he put
away some of the trinkets, his presents to Maria, and
told her into w’hat danger he had fallen by selling other
goods which he had purchased on credit ; and how a lawyer
had insulted him just now upon this very point. He would
not have his dear Maria’s money — ^he had enough, quite
enough for the present : but he valued her twenty guineas
as much as if they had been twenty thousand. He would
never forget her love and kindness : no, by all that was
sacred he would not ! His mother should know of all
her goodness. It had cheered him when he was just on
the point of breaking down under his disgrace and misery.
Might Heaven bless her for it ! There is no need to pursue
beyond this the cousins’ conversation. The dark day
seemed brighter to Harry after Maria’s visit : the imprison-
ment not so hard to bear. The world was not all selfish
and cold. Here was a fond creature w^ho really and truly
loved him. Even Castlewood was not so bad as he had
thought. He had expressed the deepest grief at not being
able to assist his kinsman. He was hopelessly in debt.
Every shilling he had won from Harry he had lost on the
next day to others. Anything that lay in his power he
would do. He would come soon and see Mr. Warrington :
he was in w^aiting to-day, and as much a prisoner as Harry
himself. So the pair talked on cheerfully and affectionately
until the darkness began to close in, when Maria, with
a sigh, bade Harry farewell.
The door scarcely closed upon her, when it opened to
admit Draper.
‘Your humble servant, sir,’ says the attorney. His
voice jarred upon Harry’s ear, and his presence offended
the young man.
‘ I had expected you some hours ago, sir,’ he curtly said.
‘ A lawyer’s time is not always his own, sir,’ said Mr.
Draper, who had just been in consultation with a bottle
of port at the ‘Grecian ’. ‘ Never mind, I’m at your orders
m
THE VIKGINIANS
now. Presume it’s all right, Mr. Warrington. Packed
your trunk ? Why, now, there you are in your bed-gown
stiU. Let me go down and settle whilst you call in your
black man and titivate a bit. I’ve a coach at the door,
and we’ll be off, and dine with the old lady.’
* Are you going to dine with the Baroness de Bernstein,
pray 2 ’
‘Not me — ^no such honour. Had my dinner already.
It’s you are a-going to dine with your aunt, I suppose ? ’
Draper, you suppose a great deal more than you
know,’ says Mr. Warrington, looking very fierce and tall,
as he f(fids his brocade <fiessing-gown round him.
‘ Great goodness, sir, what do you mean ? ’ asks Draper.
‘I mean, sir, that I have considered, and, that having
given my word to a faithful and honourable lady, it does
not become me to withdraw it.’
‘ Confound it, sir ! ’ shrieks the lawyer. ‘ I tell you she
has lost the paper. There’s nothing to bind you — ^nothing.
Why, she’s old enough to be
‘Slough, sir,’ says Mr. Warrington, with a stamp of
his foot. ‘ You seem to think you are talking to some
other pettifc^cr. I take it, Mr. Draper, you are not
accustomed to have deahn^ wiih men of honour.’
‘ PefetM ogger, indeed,’ cries Draper in a fury. ‘Men of
honour, indeed ! I’d have you to know, Mr. Warrington,
that I’m as good a man of honour as you. I don’t know
so many gamblers and horse-jockeys, perhaps. I haven’t
gambled away my patrimony, and lived as if I was a noble-
man on two hundred a year. I haven’t bought watches
on credit, and pawned — touch me if you dare, sir,’ and
the lawyer sprang to the door.
‘That is the w^ay out, sir. You can’t go through the
window, because it is barred,’ said Mr. Warrington.
‘ And the answer I take to my client is No, then ! ’
screamed ont Draper.
Harry stepped forward, with his two hands clenched.
‘ If you utter another word,’ he said, ‘ I’ll The door
was shut rapidly — ^the sentence was never finished, and
Draper went away furious to Madame de Bernstein, from
whom, though he gave her the best version of his story,
he got still fiercer language than he had received from Mr,
Warrington himself.
‘ What ? Shall she trust me, and I desert her ? ’ says
AK APPARITIOK
AN APPARITION
501
Hany, stalking up and down his room in his flowing,
rustling brocade. ‘ Dear, faithful, generous woman ! If
I lie in prison for years, I’ll be true to her.’
Her lawyer dismissed after a stormy interview, the
desolate old woman was fain to sit down to the meal which
she had hoped to share with her nephew. The chair was
before her which he was to have fiUed, the glasses shining
by the silver. One dish after another was laid before her
by the silent major-domo, and tasted and pushed away.
The man pressed his mistress at last. ‘ It is eight o’clock,’
he said. ‘ You have had nothing all day. It is good
for you to eat.’ She could not eat. She would have
her coffee. Let Case go get her her coffee. The lackeys
bore the dishes off the table, leaving their mistress sitting
at it before the vacant chair.
Presently the old servant re-entered the room without
his lady’s coffee, and with a strange scared face, and said,
" Mr. Wabbinqton ! ’
The old woman uttered an exclamation, got up from
her arm-chair, but sank back in it, trembling very much.
‘ So you are come, sir, are you ? ’ she said, with a fond
shakmg voice. ‘ Bring back the ^Ah I ’ here she
screamed, ‘ Gracious God, who is it ? ’ Her eyes stared
wildly : her white face looked ghastly through her rouge.
She clung to the arms of her chair for support, as the visitor
approached her.
A gentleman whose face and figure exactly resembled
Harry Warrington, and whose voice, when he spoke, had
tones strangely similar, had followed the servant into the
room. He bowed low towards the baroness.
‘ You expected my brother, madam ? ’ he said. ‘ I am
but now arrived in London. I went to his house. I met
his servant at your door, w^ho was bearing this letter
for you. I thought I would bring it to your ladyship
before going to him,’ — and the stranger laid down a letter
before Madame Bernstein.
‘ Are you ’ — ^gasped out tbe baroness — ‘ are you my
nephew, that we supposed was ? ’
‘ Was killed — ^and is alive ! I am George Warrington,
madam, and I ask his kmsfolk, what have you done \^dth
my brother ? ’
‘ Look, George ! ’ said the bewildered old lady. ‘ I
THE VIRGINIANS
expected him here to-night — that chair was set for him —
I have been waiting for him, sir, till now" — till I am quite
faint — I don’t like — I don’t like being alone. Do stay
and sup with me ! ’
‘ Pardon me, madam. Please God, my supper will be
with Harry to-night ! ’
‘ Bring him back. Bring him back here on any conditions !
It is but five hundred pounds 1 Here is the money, sir,
if you need it ! ’
‘ I have no w"ant, madam. I have money with me that
can’t be better employed than in my brother’s service.’
‘And you will bring him to me, sir! Say you will
bring him to me 1 ’
Mr. Warrington made a very stately bow for answer,
and quitted the room, passing by the amazed domestics,
and calling with an air of authority to Gumbo to follow.
Had Mr. Harry received no letters from home ? Master
Harry had not opened all his letters the last day or two.
Had he received no letter announcing his brother’s e^ape
from the French settlements and return to Virginia ?
Oh, no! Ho such letter had come, else Master Harry
certainly tell Gumbo. Quick, horses ; Quick by Strand to
Temple Bar! Here m tte house of Captivity and the
BdSver^ come to the rescue !
503
CHAPTER XLIX
FRIENDS IN NEED
uiCK, hackney-coach
steeds, and bear
George Warrington
through Strand
and Fleet Street to
liis imprisoned
brother’s rescue !
Any one who re-
members Hogarth’s
picture of a London
hackney-coach and
a London street road
at that period, may
fancy how weary
the quick time was,
and how long
seemed the jour-
ney ; — scarce any lights, save those carried by link-boys ;
badly hung coaches ; bad pavements ; great holes in
the road, and vast quagmires of winter mud. That drive
from Piccadilly to Fleet Street seemed almost as long to
our young man, as the journey from Marlborough to London
which he had performed in the morning.
He had written to Harry, announcing his arrival at
Bristol. He had previously VTitten to his brother giving
the great news of his existence and his return from captivity.
There was war between England and France at that time ;
the French privateers were for ever on the look-out for
British merchant-ships, and seized them often within sight
604 THE VIKGINIANS
of port. The letter bearing the intelligence of George’s
restoration must have been on board one of the many
American ships of which the French took possession.
The letter telling of George’s arrival in England was never
opened by poor Harry ; it was lying at the latter’s apart-
ments, which it reached on the third morning after Harry’s
captivity, when the angry Mr. Ruff had refused to give
up any single item more of his lodger’s property.
To these apartments George first went on his arrival in
London, and asked for his brother. Scared at the likeness
between them, the maidservant who opened the door
screamed, and ran back to her mistress. The mistress
not liking to tell the truth, or to ovm. that poor Harry was
actually a prisoner at her husband’s suit, said Mr. Warring-
ton had left his lodging ; she did not know where Mr.
Warrington was. George knew that Clarges Street was
dose to Bond Street. Often and often had he looked
ovap the London map. Aunt Bernstein would tell him
where Harry was. He might be with her at that very
moment. George had read in Hany’s letters to Virginia
about Aunt Bernstein’s kindness to Harry. Even M^am
Esmond was softened by it (and e^pecmhy touched by a
letter which the baroness wrote — ^the letter which caused
George to pack off post haste for Europe, indeed). She
heartily hoped and trusted that Madam Beatrix had found
occasion to repent of her former bad ways. It was time,
indeed, at her age ; and Heaven knows that she had plenty
to repent of ! I have known a harmless, good old soul
of eighty, still bepommelled and stoned by irreproachable
ladies of the straitest sect of the Pharisees, for a little
slip which occurred long before the present century was
bom, or she herself was twenty years old. Rachel Esmond
never mentioned her eldest daughter ; Madam Esmond
Warrington never mentioned her sister. No. In spite
of the order for remission of the sentence — ^in spite of the
h«mdwriting on the floor of the Temple — there is a crime
which some folks never wiU pardon, and regarding which
female virtue, especially, is inexorable.
I suppose the Virginians’ agent at Bristol had told
George fearful stories of his brother’s doings. Gumbo,
whom he met at his aunt’s door, as soon as the lad recovered
from his terror at the sudden reappearance of the master
whom he supposed dead, had leisure to stammer out a
FRIENDS IN NEED
m
word or two respecting his young master’s whereabouts,
and present pitiable condition ; and hence Mr. George’s
sternness of demeanour when he presented himself to the
old lady. It seemed to him a matter of course that his
brother in difficulty should be rescued by his relations.
Oh, George, how little you know about London and London
ways ! Whene’er you take your w^alks abroad how many
poor you meet : — ^if a piiilanthropist were for rescuing all
of them, not all the wealth of all the provinces of America
would suffice him !
But the feeling and agitation displayed by the old lady
touched her nephew’s heart w^hen, jolting through the
dark streets towards the house of his brother’s captivity,
George came to think of his aunt’s behaviour. ‘ She does
feel my poor Harry’s misfortune,’ he thought to himself.
‘ I have been too hasty in judging her.’ Again and again,
in the course of his life, Mr. George had to rebuke himself
with the same crime of being too hasty. How many of
us have not ? And, alas, the mischief done, there’s no
repentance will mend it. Quick, coachman ! We are
almost as slow as you are in getting from Clarges Street
to the Temple. Poor Gumbo knows the way to the bailiff’s
house weU enough. Again the bell is set ringing. The
first door is opened to George and his negro ; then that
first door is locked warily upon them, and they find them-
selves in a little passage with a little Jewish janitor ; then
a second door is unlocked, and they enter into the house.
The Jewish janitor stares, as by his flaring tallow-torch
he sees a second Mr. Warrington before him. Come to
see that gentleman ? Yes. But wait a moment. This
is Mr. Warrington’s brother from America. Gumbo must
go and prepare his master first. Step into this room.
There’s a gentleman already there about Mr. W.’s business
(the porter says), and another upstairs with him now.
There’s no end of people have been about him.
The room into which George was introduced w^as a small
apartment which went by the name of Mr. Amos’s office,
and where, by a guttering candle, and talking to the
bailiff, sat a stout gentleman in a cloak and a laced hat.
The young porter carried his candle, too, preceding Mr.
George, so there was a sufficiency of light in the apartment.
‘ We are not angry any more, Harry ! ’ says the stout
gentleman, in a cheery voice, getting up and advancing
506 THE VIEGINIANS
with an outstretched hand to the new-comer. ^ Thank
God, my boy ! Mr. Amos here says, there will be no difficulty
about James and me being your bail, and we will do your
business by breakfast-time in the morning.’
‘ Why . . . Angels and ministers of grace ! who are you? ’
And he started back as the other had hold of his hand.
But the stranger grasped it only the more strongly.
‘ God bl^ you, sir ! ’ he said, ‘ I know who you are. You
must be Colonel Lambert, of whose kindness to him my
poor Harry wrote. And I am the brother whom you
liave heard of, sir ; and who was left for dead in Mr. Brad-
dock’s action ; and came to life again after eighteen
months amon^ the French ; and live to thank God and
thank you for your kindn^ to my Harry,’ continued
the lad with a faltering voice.
‘ James ! James ! Here is news ! ’ cries Mr. Lambert
to a gentleman in red, who now entered the room. ‘ Here
are the dead come alive ! Here is Harry Scapegrace’s
brother come back, and yith his scalp on his head too ! ’
(George had taken his hat oflF, and was standing by the
light.) ‘ This is my brother bail, Mr. Warrington ! This
is Lieutenant-Colonel James Wolfe, at your service. You
must know there has h&m a little difference between Harry
and me, Mr. George. He is pacified, is he, James ? ’
‘ He is full of gratitude,’ says Mr. WoKe, after making
his bow to Mr. Warrington.
" Harry wTote home about Mr. Wolfe, too, sir,’ said the
young man, ‘and I hope my brother’s friends will he so
kind as to be mine.’
‘I wish he had none other but us, Mr. Warrington.
Poor Hgury’s fine folks have been too fine for him, and have
ended by landing him here.’
‘ Nay, your honours, I have done my best to make the
young gentleman comfortable ; and, knowing your honour
before, when you came to bail Captain Watkins, and that
your security is perfectly good, — ^if your honour wishes,
the young gentleman can go out this very night, and I will
make it all right with the lawyer in the morning,’ says
Harry’s landlord, who knew the rank and respectability
of the two gentlemen who had come to offer hail for his
young prisoner.
‘ The debt is five hundred and odd pounds, I think ? ’
said Mr* Warrington. ‘ With a hundred thanks to these
FRIENDS IN NEED
507
gentlemen, I can pay the amount at this moment into
the officer’s hands, taking the usual acknowledgement and
caution. But I can never forget, gentlemen, that you helped
my brother at his need, and, for doing so, I say thank you,
and God bless you, in my mother’s name and mine.’
Gumbo had, meanwhile, gone upstairs to his master’s
apartment, w’here Harry would probably have scolded the
negro for returning that night, but that the young gentleman
was very much soothed and touched by the conversation
he had had with the friend who had just left him. He
w'as sitting over his pipe of Virginia in a sad mood (for,
somehow, even Maria’s goodness and affection, as she had
just exhibited them, had not altogether consoled him ;
and he had thought, with a little dismay, of certain conse-
quences to which that very kindness and fidelity bound
him) when Mr. Wolfe’s homely features and eager out-
stretched hand came to cheer the prisoner, and he heard
how Mr. Lambert was below, and the errand upon which
the two officers had come. In spite of himself, Lambert
would be kind to him. In spite of Harry’s ill-temper,
and needless suspicion and anger, the good gentleman
was determined to help him if he might* — ^to help him even
against Mr. WoEe’s own advice, as the latter frankly told
Harry. ‘ For you were wrong, Mr. Warrington,’ said the
colonel, * and you wouldn’t be set ri^t ; and you, a young
man, used hard words and unkind behatviour to your
senior, and what is more, one of the best gentlemen who
walks God’s earth. You see, sir, what his answer hath
been to your wayward temper. You will bear with a friend
who speaks frankly with you ? Martin Lambert hath
acted in this as he always doth, as the best Christian,
the best friend, the most Innd and generous of men. Nay,
if you want another proof of his goodness, here it is : He
has converted me, who, I don’t care to disgtiise, was
angry with you for your treatment of him, and has abso-
lutely brought me down here to be your bail. Let us both
cry Peccavimus! Harry, and shake our friend by the
hand ! He is sitting in the room below. He would not
come here till he knew how you w'ould receive him.’
^ I think he is a good man ! ’ groaned out Harry. ‘ I was
very angry and wild at the time when he and I met last,
Colonel Wolfe. Nay, perhaps he was right in sending
506
THE VIRGINIAHS
baok tliose trinkets, hurt as I was at his doing so. Go
down to him, will you be so kind, sir ? and tell him I am
sorry, and ask his pardon, and — and, God bless him for
his generous behaviour.’ And here the young gentleman
tum^ his head away, and rubbed his hand across his eyes.
‘ Tell him all this thyself, Harry ! ’ cries the colonel,
taking the young fellow’s hand. ‘No deputy vlll ever
say it half so well. Come with me now.’
‘You go first, and I’ll — ^I’ll follow, — on my word I will.
See ! I am in my morning gown ! I will but put on a
coat and come to him. Give him my message first. J ust —
just prepare him for me ! ’ says poor Harry, who knew
he must do it, but yet did not much like that process of
eating of humble-pie.
Wolfe went out smiling — ^understanding the lad’s scruples
well enough, perhaps. As he opened the door, Mr. Gumbo
entered it ; almost forgetting to bow to the gentleman,
profusely courteous as he was on ordinary occasions, —
his eyes glaring round, his great mouth grinning — ^himself
in a state of such high excitement and delight that his
master remarked his condition.
‘ What, Gum ? What has happened to thee ? Hast
thou gofe a new sweetheart f ’
No, Gum had not got no new sweetheart, master.
^ Give me my coat. What has brought thee back ? ’
Gum grinn^ prodigiously. ‘ I have seen a ghost,
mas’r ! ’ he said.
‘ A ghost ! and whose, and where ? ’
‘ Whar ?. Saw him at Madame Bernstein’s house. Come
with him here m the coach \ He downstairs now with
Colonel Lambert I ’ Whilst Gumbo is speaking, as he is
putting on his master’s coat, his eyes are rolling, his head
is W€tgging, his hands are trembling, his lips are grinning.
• Ghost — ^what ghost ? ’ says Harry in a strange agitation,
‘ Is anybody — ^is — ^my mother come ? ’
‘ No, sir ; no. Master Harry ! ’ Gumbo’s head rolls
nearly off in its violent convolutions, and his master,
looking oddly at him, flings the door open and goes rapidly
down the stair.
He is at the foot of it, just as a voice within the little
office^ of which the door is open, is saying, ‘ and for doing
so, 1 say thank you, and God Mess you in my mother^ s name
ajfd mme,^
FRIENDS IN NEED
511
" Wliose voice is that ? ’ calls out Hany Warrington,
with a strange cry in his own voice.
‘ It’s the ghosts, mas’r ! ’ says Gumbo, from behind ;
and Harry runs forward to the room, — where, if you please,
we will pause a little minute before we enter. The two
gentlemen who were there, turned their heads away. The
lost w^as found again. The dead was alive. The prodigal
was on his brother’s heart, — ^his own full of love, gratitude,
repentance.
‘ Come away, James ! I think we are not wanted any
more here,’ says the colonel. ‘ Good night, boys. Some
ladies in Hill Street won’t be able to sleep for this strange
news. Or will you go home and sup with ’em, and tell
them the story ? ’
No, with many thanks, the boys would not go and sup
to-night. They had stories of their own to tell. ‘ Quick,
Gumbo, with the trunks ! Good-bye, Mr. Amos ! ’ Harry
felt almost unhappy when he went away.
CHAPTER L
OOITTAINS A GREAT DEAL OP THE FINEST M0RALIT5r
HEN first we had the honour
to be presented to Sir Miles
Warrington at the king’s
drawing-room , in St . James’s
Palace, I confess that I, for
one — looking at his jolly
round face, his broad round
waistcoat, his hearty coun-
try manner, — expected that
I had lighted upon a most
eligible and agreeable ac-
quaintance at last, and was
about to become intimate
with that noblest specimen
of the human race, the be-
praised of songs and men,
the good old English country gentleman. In fact, to be a
good old country gentleman is to hold a position nearest
the gods, and at the summit of earthly felicity. To
m
THE VIRGINIANS
have a large rtnencumbered rent-roll, and the rents regu-
larly paid by adoring farmers, who bless their stars
at having such a lanfiord as his honour ; to have no
tenant holding back with his money, excepting just one,
perhaj^, who does so in order to give occasion to Good
Old Country Gentleman to show his sublime charity and
universal benevolence of soul ; to hunt three days a week,
love the sport of all things, and have perfect good health
and good appetite in consequence ; to have not only
good appetite, but a good dinner ; to sit down at church
in the midst of a chorus of blessings from the villagers,
the first man in the Parish, the benefactor of the Parish,
with a consciousness of consummate desert, saying, ‘ Have
mercy upon us, miserable sinners,’ to be sure, but only
for form’s sake, because the words are written in the book,
and to give other folks an example : — ^a G. O. C. G. a
miserable sinner ! So healthy, so wealthy, so jolly, so
much respected by the vicar, so much honoured by the
tenants, so much beloved and admired by his family,
amongst whom his story of grouse in the gun-room causes
laughter from generation to generation ; — this perfect
being a miserable sinner ! AU(^ done / Give any man
good health and temper, five thousand a year, the adoration
of his parish, and the love and worship of his family, and
I’ll defy you to make him so heartily dissatisfied with his
spiritual condition as to set himself down a miserable
anything. If you were a royal highness, and went to
church in the most perfect health and comfort, the parson
waiting to begin the service until your R. H. came in,
would you beheve yourself to be a miserable &c. ? You
might when racked with gout, in solitude, the fear of death
before your eyes, the doctor having cut off your bottle of
claret, and ordered arrowroot and a little sherry, — ^you
might then be humiliated, and acknowledge your own
shortcomings, and the vanity of things in general ; but,
in high health, sunshine, spirits, that word miserable is
only a form. You can’t think in your heart that you
are to be pitied much for the present. If you are to be
miserable, what is Colin Ploughman, with the ague, seven
children, two ;|^unds a year rent to pay for his cottage,
and eight shillings a week ? No : a healthy, rich, jolly
country gentleman, if miserable, has a very supportable
misery ; if a sinner, has very few people to tell liim so. -
A GREAT DEAL OF THE FINEST MORALITY 513
It may be he becomes somewhat selfish ; but at least
he is satisfied with himself. Except my lord at the castle,
there is nobody for miles and miles round so good or so
great. His admirable wife ministers to him, and to the
whole parish, indeed : his children bow before him ; the
vicar of the parish reverences him : he is respected at quarter
sessions : he causes poachers to tremble ; off go all hats
before him at market : and round about his great coach,
in which his spotless daughters and sublime lady sit, all
the country-town tradesmen cringe, bareheaded, and the
farmers’ women drop innumerable curtsies. From their
cushions in the great coach the ladies look down beneficently,
and smile on the poorer folk. Tliey buy a yard of ribbon
with affability ; they condescend to purchase an ounce
of salts, or a packet of flower-seeds : they deign to cheapen
a goose : their drive is like a royal progress ; a happy
people is supposed to press round them and bless them.
Tradesmen bow, farmers’ wiv^ bob, town-boys, waving
their ragged hats, cheer the red-faced coachman as he
drives the fat bays, and cry, ‘ Sir Miles for ever ! Throw
us a halfpenny, my lady ! ’
But suppose 'the market-woman should hide her fat
goose when Sir Miles’s coach comes, out of terror lest my
lady, spying the bird, should insist on purchasing it a bar-
gain ? Suppose no coppers ever were known to come out
of the royal coach window ? Suppose Sir Miles regaled
his tenants with notoriously small beer, and his poor
with especially thin broth ? This may be our fine old
English gentleman’s way. There have been not a few*
fine English gentlemen and ladies of this sort ; who patron-
ized the poor without ever relieving them, who called out
‘Amen ! ’ at church as loud as the clerk ; who w^ent through
all the forms of piety, and discharged all the etiquette
of old English gentlemanhood ; who bought virtue a
bargain, as it were, and had no doubt they wnre honouring
her by the purchase. Poor Harry in his distress asked
help from his relations : his aunt sent him a tract and her
blessing ; his uncle had business out of town, and could
not, of course, answer the poor boy’s petition. How
much of this behaviour goes on daily in respectable life,
think you ? You can fancy Lord and Lady Macbeth
concocting a murder, and coming together with some Httle
awkwardness, perhaps, w^hen the transaction w^as done
VIRQIXIA2S-S S
514
THE VIBGINIANS
and over ; but my Lord and Lady Skinflint, when they
consult in their bedroom about giving their lucHess nephew
a helping hand, and determine to refuse, and go down to
family prayers, and meet their children and domestics,
and discourse virtuously before them, and then remain
together, and talk nose to nose, — what can they think
of one another ? and of the poor kinsman fallen among
the thieves, and groaning for help unheeded ? How can
they go on with those virtuous airs ? How can they dare
look each other in the face ?
Dare ? Do you suppose they think they have done
wrong ? Do you suppose Skinflint is tortured with remorse
at the idea of the distress which called to him in vain,
and of the hunger which he sent empty away ? Not he.
He is indignant with Prodigal for being a fool : he is
not ashamed of himself for being a curmudgeon. What ?
a young man with such opportunities throw them away ?
A fortune spent amongst gamblers and spendthrifts ?
Horrible, horrible ! Take warning, my chfld, by this
unfortunate young man’s behaviour, and see the conse-
quences of extravagance- According to the great and
always Established Church of the Pharisees, here is an
admirable o|^rtunity for a moral discourse, and an
ass^ion of virtue. ‘ And to think of his deceiving us so I ’
cries out Lady Warrington.
‘ Very sad, very sad, my dear ! ’ says Sir Mies, wagging
his head.
‘ To think of so much extravagance in one so young ! ’
cries Lady Warrington. ^ Cards, bets, feasts at taverns of
the most wicked profusion, carriage and riding hors^,
the company of the wealthy and profligate of his own sex,
and, I fear, of the most iniquitous persons of ours.’
‘ Hush, my Lady Warrington ! ’ cries her husband,
glancing towards the spotless Dora and Flora, who held
down their blushing heads, at the mention of the last
naughty persons.
‘ No wonder my poor children hide their faces 1 ’ mamma
continues. ‘ My dears, I wish even the existence of such
creatures could be kept from you ! ’
‘ They can’t go to an opera, or the Park, without seeing
’em, to be sure,’ says Sir Miles.
‘ To think we should haveintroduced such a young serpent
into the bosom of our family I and have left him in the
A GREAT DEAL OF THE FINEST MORALITY 517
company of that guileless darling ! ’ and she points to
Master Miles.
‘ Who’s a serpent, mamma ? ’ inquires that youth.
‘ First you said Cousin Harry was bad : then he was good :
now he is bad again. Which is he, Sir Miles ? ’
‘ He has faults, like all of us, Miley, my dear. Your
cousin has been wild, and you must take w’arning by him.’
‘ Was not my elder brother, who died — my naughty
brother — was not he wild too ? He w'as not kind to me
when I w^as quite a little boy. He never gave me money,
nor toys, nor rode with me, nor — ^w^hy do you cry, mamma ?
Sure I remember how Hugh and you were ahvays fight ’
‘ Silence, sir ! ’ cry out papa and the girls in a breath.
‘Don’t you know you are never to mention that name ? ’
‘ I know^ I love Harry, and I didn’t love Hugh,’ says
the sturdy little rebel. ‘ And if Cousin Harry is in prison.
I’ll give him my haK-guinea that my godpapa gave me,
and anything I have — yes, anything, except — except my
little horse — ^and my silver waistcoat — ^and — and Snowball
and Sweetlips at home — ^and — and, yes, my custard after
dinner.’ This w’’as in reply to a hint of sister Dora. ‘ But
I’d give him some of it,’ continues Miles, after a pause.
‘ Shut thy mouth with it, child, and then go about thy
business,’ says papa, amus^. Sir Miles Warrington had
a considerable fund of easy humour.
‘ Who would have thought he should ever be so wild ? ’
mamma goes on.
‘ Nay. Youth is the season for wild oats, my dear.’
‘ That we should be so misled in him ! ’ sighed the girls.
‘ That he should kiss us both ! ’ cried papa.
‘ Sir Miles Warrington, I have no patience with that
sort of vulgarity ! ’ says the majestic matron.
‘ Which of you was the favourite yesterday, girls ? ’
continues the father. ^
‘ Favourite, indeed 1 I told him over and over again
of my engagement to dear Tom — I did, Dora, — why do
you sneer, if you please ? ’ says the handsome sister.
‘ Nay, to do her justice, so did Dora too,’ said papa.
‘ Because Flora seemed to wish to forget her engagement
with dear Tom sometimes,’ remarks her sister.
‘ I never, never, never wished to break with Tom ! It’s
wicked of you to say so, Dora ! It is you who were for ever
sneering at him : it is you who are always envious because
518
TEE VIRGINIANS
I happen~at least, because gentlemen imagine that I am
not ill-looking, and prefer me to some folks, in spite of all
their learning and 'nit ! ’ cries Flora, tossing her head over
her shoulder, and looking at the glass.
‘ Why are you always looking there, sister ? ’ says the
artless Miles 'junior. ‘ Sure, you must know your face
well enough ! ’
‘ Some people look at it just as often, child, who haven’t
near such good reason,’ says papa, gallantly.
‘ If you mean me, Sir Miles, I thank you,’ cries Dora.
‘ My face is as Heaven made it, and my father and mother
gave it me. ’Tis not my fault if I resemble my papa’s
family. If my head is homely, at least I have got some
brains in it. I envious of Flora, indeed, because she has
found favour in the sight of poor Tom Claypool I I should
as soon be proud of captivating a ploughboy ! ’
‘ Pray, miss, w^as your Mr. Harry, of Virginia, much wiser
than Tom Claypool *? You would have had him for the
asking ! ’ exclaims Flora.
‘ And so would you, miss, and have dropped Tom Claypool
into the sea ! ’ cries Dora.
‘ I wouldn’t.’
* You would.’
‘ I wouldn’t ; ’ — and da capo goes the conversation — the
shuttlecock of wrath being briskly battled from one sister
to another.
‘ 0 my children ! Is this the way you dwell together
in unity ? ’ exclaims their excellent female parent, laying
down her embroidery. ‘ What an example you set to this
Innocent.’
* Like to see ’em fight, my lady I ’ cries the Innocent,
rubbing his hands.
" At her, Flora ! Worry her, Dora I To it again, you
little rogues ! ’ says facetious papa. ‘ ’Tis good sport, ain’t
it, Miley ? ’
‘ O Sir Miles ! 0 my children ! These disputes are
unseemly. They tear a fond mother’s heart,’ says mamma,
with majestic action, though bearing the laceration of her
bosom with much seeming equanimity. ‘ What cause for
thankfulness ought w'e to have, that \vatchful parents have
prevented any idle engagements betw’een you and your
mi^ided cousin. If w’e have been mistaken in him, is it
not a mercy that w^e have found out our error in time ?
A GBEAT DEAL OF THE FINEST MORALITY 519
If either of you had any preference for him, your excellent
good sense, my loves, will teach you to overcome, to
eradicate, the vain feeling. That we cherished and were
kind to him can Tiever be a source of regret. ’Tis a proof
of our good nature. What we have to regret, I fear, is,
that your cousin should have proved unw’orthy of our
kindness, and, coming away from the society of gamblers,
play-actors, and the like, should have brought contamina-
tion — ^pollution, I had almost said — ^into this pure family ! ’
‘ Oh, bother mamma’s sermons ! ’ says Flora, as my lady
pursues a harangue of which w^e only give the commence-
ment here, but during w^hich papa, whistling, gently quits
the room on tiptoe, while the artless Miles junior winds
his top and pegs it under the robes of his sisters. It has
done humming, and staggered and tumbled over, and
expired in its usual tipsy manner, long ere Lady W^arrington
has finished her sermon.
‘ Were you listening to me, my child ? ’ she asks, laying
her hand on her darhng’s head.
‘ Yes, mother,’ says he, with the whipcord in his mouth,
and proceeding to wind up his sportive engine. ‘ You w^as
a-saying that Harry was very poor now, and that we
oughtn’t to help him. That’s what you was saying ;
wasn’t it, madam ? ’
‘ My poor child, thou wilt understand me better when
thou art older,’ says mamma, turning towards that ceiling
to which her eyes al-ways have recourse.
* Get out, you little wTetch ! ’ cries one of the sisters.
The artless one has pegged his top at Dora’s toes, and
laughs with the glee of merry boyhood at his sister’s
discomfiture.
.But what is this ? Who comes here ? Why does Sir
Miles return to the drawing-room, and why does Tom
Claypool, who strides after the baronet, wear a countenance
so ^sturbed ?
‘ Here’s a pretty business, my Lady Warrington ! ’ cries
Sir Miles. ‘ Here’s a wonderful wonder of wonders, girls ! ’
‘ For goodness’ sake, gentlemen, w^hat is your intelli-
gence ? ’ asks the virtuous matron.
‘ The w^'hole town’s talking about it, my lady 1 ’ says
Tom Claypool, puffing for breath.
‘ Tom has seen him,’ continued Sir Miles.
" Seen both of them, my Lady Warrington. They were
THE VIB^INIANS
at Ranelagh last night, with a regular mob after ’em.
And so like, that but for their different ribbons you would
hardly have told one from the other. One was in blue,
the other in brown ; but Tm certain he has worn both
the suits here.’
‘ What suits ? ’
‘ What one, — ^what other ? ’ call the girls.
‘ Why, your fortunate youth, to be sure.’
‘ Our precious Virginian, and heir to the principality I ’
says Sir Miles.
‘ Is my nephew, then, released from his incarceration ? ’
asks her ladyship. ‘ And is he again plunged in the vortex
of dissip . . .’
‘ Confound him ! ’ roars out the baronet, with an expres-
sion which I fear was even stronger. ‘ What should you
think, my Lady Warrington, if this precious nephew of
mine should turn out to be an impostor ; by Greorge ! no
better than an adventurer ? ’
‘ An inward monitor whispered me as much I ’ cried the
lady ; ‘ but I dashed from me the imworthy suspicion.
Speak, Sir Miles : we bum with impatience to listen to
your intelligence.’
‘ I’ll spe«k, my love, when you’ve done,’ says Sir Miles.
‘ Well, what do you think of my gentleman, who comes
into my house, dines at my table, is treated as one of this
family, kii^s my ’
‘ What ? ’ asks Tom Claypool, firing as red as his waist-
coat.
‘ — ^Hem ! Kisses my wife’s hand, and is treated in the
fondest manner, by George ! What do you think of this
feIlow% who talks of his property and his principality, by
Jupiter ! — ^turning out to be a beggarly second son !
A beggar, my Lady Warrington, by
‘ Sir Miles Warrington, no violence of language before
these dear ones ! I sink to the earth, confounded by this
unutterable hypocrisy. And did I entrust thee to a pre-
tender, my blessed boy ? Did I leave thee with an im-
pcBtor, my innocent one ? ’ the matron cries, fondling her son.
‘ Who’s an impostor, my lady ? ’ asks the child.
‘ That confounded young scamp of a Harry Warrington ! ’
bawls out papa ; on w’hich the little Miles, after wearing
a puzaied look for a moment, and yielding to I know not
what hidden emotion, bursts out crying.
A GREAT DEAL OF THE FINEST MORALITY 521
His admirable mother proposes to clutch him to her
heart, but he rejects the pure caress, bawling only the
louder, and kicking frantically about the maternal gremium,
as the butler announces ‘ Mr. George Warrington, 1^. Henry
Warrington ! ’ Miles is dropped from his mother’s lap.
Sir Mies’s face emulates Mr. ClaypooFs waistcoat. The
three ladies rise up, and make three most frigid curtsies,
as our tw’O young men enter the room.
Little Miles runs towards them. He holds out a little
hand. ‘ Oh, Harry ! No ! which is Harry ? YouWe my
Harry,’ and he chooses rightly this time. ‘ Oh, you dear
Harry ! I’m so glad you are come I and they’ve been
abusing you so ! ’
‘ I am come to pay my duty to my uncle,’ says the
dark-haired Mr. Warrington ; ‘ and to thank him for his
hospitalities to my brot&r Henry.’
‘ What, nephew George ? My brother’s face and eyes !
Boys both, I am delighted to see you ! ’ cries their uncle,
grasping affectionately a hand of each, as his honest face
radiates with pleasure.
‘ This indeed hath been a most mysterious and a most
providential resuscitation,’ says Lady Warrington. ‘ Only
I wonder that my nephew Henry concealed the circum-
stance until now,’ she adds, with a sidelong glance at both
young gentlemen.
‘ He knew it no more than your ladyship,’ says Mr. War-
rington. The young ladies looked at each other with down-
cast eyes.
‘ Indeed, sir ! a most singular circumstance,’ says
mamma, with another curtsy. ‘ We had heard of it, sir ;
and Mr. Claypool, our county neighbour, had just brought
us the intelligence, and it even now formed the subject
of my conversation with my daughters.’
‘ Yes,’ cries out a little voice, ‘ and do you know, Harry,
father and mother said you w^as a — a, imp ’
‘ Silence, my child 1 Screwby, convey Master Warrington
to his own apartment ! These, Mr. Warrington — or, I sup-
pose I should say nephew George — are your cousins.’ Two
curtsies — ^two cheeses are made — ^two hands are held out.
Mr. Esmond Warrington makes a profound low bow, w^hich
embraces (and it is the only embrace which the gentleman
offers) all three ladies. He lays his hat to his heart. He
says, ‘ It is my duty, madam, to pay my respects to my
s 3
522
THE VIRGINIANS
uncle and coumns, and to thank your ladyship for such
hcmpitality as you have been enabled to show to my
brother,’
‘ It was not much, nephew, but it was our best. Ods
bobs ! ’ cries the hearty Sir Miles, ‘ it was our best ! ’
‘ And I appreciate it, sir,’ says Mr. Warrington, looking
gravely round at the family.
‘ Ghve us thy hand. Not a word more,’ says Sir Miles.
* What ? do you think I’m a cannibal, and won’t extend
the hand of hospitality to my dear brother’s son ? What
say you, lads ? Will you eat our mutton at three ? This
is my neighbour, Tom Claypool, son to Sir Thomas Clay-
pool, baronet, and my very good friend. Hey, Tom !
Thou wilt be of the party, Tom ? Thou knowest our brew,
hey, my boy ? ’
‘ Yes, I Imow it, Sir Miles,’ replies Tom, with no peculiar
expression of rapture on his face.
* And thou shalt taste it, my boy, thou shalt taste it !
What is there for dinner, my lady Warrington ? Our
food is plain, but plenty, lads — ^plain, but plenty ! ’
^ We cannot partake of it to-day, sir. We dine with
a friend who occupies my Lord Wrotham’s house, your
nmghbour. Colonel Lambert — ^Major-General Lambert he
has just been made.’
‘ With two daughters, I think — countrified-looking girls
— are they not ? ’ asks Flora.
‘ I think I have remarked two little rather dowdy things,’
says Dora.
‘ They are as good girls as any in England ! ’ breaks
out Harry, to whom no one had thought of saying a single
word. His reign was over, you see. He was nobody.
What wonder, then, that he should not be visible ?
‘ Oh, indeed, cousin ! ’ sa,js Dora, with a glance at the
young man, who sat with burning cheeks, chafing at the
humiliation put upon him, but not kno’wing how or whether
he should notice it. ^ Oh, indeed, cousin ! You are very
charitable — or very lucky, I’m sure I You see angels where
we only see ordinary little persons. I’m sure I could
not imagine who were those odd-looking people in Lord
Wrotham’s coach, with his handsome liveries. But if they
were three angels, I have nothing to say.’
* My brother is an enthusiast,’ interposes George. " He
is often mistaken about women.’
A GREAT DEAL OF THE FINEST MORALITY 523
‘ Oh, really ! ’ says Dora, looking a little uneasy.
‘ I fear my nephew Henry has indeed met with some
unfavourable specimens of our sex,’ the matron remarks,
with a groan.
‘ We are so easily taken in, madam — w^e are both very
young yet — w’e shall grow^ older and learn better.’
‘ Most sincerely, nephew’ George, I trust you may. You
have my best wishes, my prayers, for your brother’s wel-
fare and your own. No efforts of ours have been w’anting.
At a painful moment, to which I will not further allude
‘ And when my uncle Sir Miles w’as out of towm,’ says
George, looking towards the baronet, who smiles at him
with affectionate approval.
‘ — I sent your brother a w’ork wiiich I thought might
comfort him, and I know’ might improve him. Nay, do
not thank me ; I claim no credit ; I did but my duty —
a humble woman’s duty — ^for what are this w’orld’s go^s,
nephew’, compared to the welfare of a soul ? If I did
good, I am thankful ; if I was useful, I rejoice. If, through
my means, you have been brought, Harry, to consider ’
‘ Oh I the sermon, is it ? ’ breaks in dow’nright Harry.
‘ I hadn’t time to read a single syllable of it, aunt — ^thank
you. You see I don’t care much about that kind of thing —
but thank you all the same.’
‘ The intention is ever3rthing,’ says Mr. Warrington, " and
w’e are both grateful. Our dear friend. General Lambert,
intended to give bail for Harry ; but, happily, I had funds
of Harry’s with me to meet any demands upon us. But
the kin^ess is the same, and I am grateful to the friend
w’ho hastened to my brother’s rescue when he had most
need of aid, and when his owm relations happened — so
unfortunately — ^to be out of towTti.’
‘ Anything I could do, my dear boy, I’m sure — ^my
brother’s son — my own nephew — ods bobs ! you know —
that is, anything — anything, you know’ ! ’ cries Sir Miles,
bringing his own hand into George’s with a generous
smack. ‘ You canH stay and dine with us ? Put off the
colonel — ^the general — do, now ! Or name a day. My
Lady Warrington, make my nephew’ name a day when he
win sit under his grandfather’s picture, and drink some
of his wine ! ’
‘ His intellectual faculties seem more developed than
those of his unlucky younger brother,’ remarked my lady,
524
THE YIEGINIANS
when the young gentlemen had taken their leave. ‘ The
younger must be reckless and extravagant about money
inde^, for did you remark, Sir Miles, the loss of his rever-
sion in Virginia — ^the amount of which has, no doubt, been
grossly exaggerated, but, nevertheless, must be something
considerable-— did you, I say, remark that the ruin of
Harry’s prospects scarcely seemed to affect him ? ’
* I shouldn’t be at all surprised that the elder turns out
to be as poor as the young one,’ says Dora, tossing her
head.
‘ He ! he ! Did you see that cousin George had one of
cousin Harry’s suits of clothes on — ^the brown and gold —
, that one he wore when he went with you to the oratorio,
Flora ? ’
‘ Did he take Flora to an oratorio ? ’ asks Mr. Claypool,
fiercely.
* I was ill and couldn’t go, and my cousin went with
her,’ says Dora.
‘ Far be it from me to object to any innocent amusement,
much less to the music of Mr. Handel, dear Mr. Claypool,’
says mamma. ‘ Music refines the soul, elevates the under-
st^ding, is heard in our churches, and ’tis well known
was practised by King David. Your operas I shun as
deleterious ; your ballets I wnuld forbid to my children
as most immoral ; but music, my dears ! May w^e enjoy
it, like everything else in reason — may we ’
* There’s the music of the dinner-bell,’ says papa, rubbing
his hands. ‘ Come, girls. Screwby, go and fetch Master
Miley. Tom, take down my lady.’
‘ Nay, dear Thomas, I walk but slowly. Go you with
dearest Flora downstairs,’ says Virtue.
But Dora took care to make the evening pleasant by
talking of Handel and oratorios constantly during dinner.
525
CHAPTER LI
CO:^rTICUEBE OPINES
A CBfOSS the way, if the
graxiious reader -will
please to step over
^ ; promised to come to
dinner ; but James is
dancing attendance upon Miss Lowther, and would rather
have a glance from her eyes than the finest kickshaws
dressed by Lord Wrotham’s cook, or the dessert which is
promised for the entertainment at which you are just
going to sit down. You mil make the sixth. You may
take Mr. Wolfe’s place. You may be sure he won’t
come. As for me, I will stand at the sideboard and
report the conversation.
Note first, how happy the women look ! When Harry
Warrington was taken by those bailiffs, I had intended
to tell you how^ the good Mrs. Lambert, hearing of the boy’s
mishap, had flown to her husband, and had begged, im-
plored, insisted, that her Martin should help liim. ‘ Never
mind liis rebeldom of the other day ; never mind about
his being angry that his presents wnre returned — of course
anybody would be angry, much more such a liigh-spirited
lad as Harry ! Never mind about our being so poor, and
w’^anting all our spare money for the boys at college ;
526
THE VntGINIANS
there must be some way of getting him out of the scrape.
Did you not get Charles Watkins out of the scrape two
years ago ; and did he not pay you back every halfpenny ?
Yes; and you made a whole family happy, blessed be
God ! and Mrs. Watkins prays for you and blesses you to
this very day, and I think everything has prospered with
us since. And I have no doubt it has made you a major-
general — ^no mrtMy doubt,’ says the fond wife.
Now, as Martin Lambert requires very little persuasion
to do a kind action, he in tins instance lets himself be
persuaded easily enough, and having made up his mind to
seek for friend James Wolfe, and give bail for Harry, he
takes his leave and his hat, and squeezes Theo’s hand,
who seems to divine his errand (or perhaps that silly
mamma has blabbed it), and kisses little Hetty’s flushed
cheek, and away he goes out of the apartment where the
girls and their mother are sitting, though he is followed
out of the room by the latter.
When she is alone wuth him, that enthusiastic matron
cannot control her feelings any longer. She flings her arms
round her husband’s neck, kiss^ him a hundred and
twenty-five times in an instant — calls God to bless
him — cries plentifully on his shoulder ; and in this senti-
mental attitude is discovered by old Mrs. Quiggett,
my lord’s housekeeper, who is bustling about the house,
and, I suppose, is quite astounded at the conjugal
phenomenon.
‘ We have had a tiff, and we are making it up ! Don’t
tell tales out of school, Mrs. Quiggett ! ’ says the gentle-
man, walking off,
* Well, I never ! ’ says Mrs. Quiggett, with a shriU, strident
laugh, like a venerable old cocfetoo — ^which white, hook-
nosed, long-lived bird Mrs. Quiggett strongly resembles.
" Well, I never ! ’ says Quiggett, laughing and shaking her
old sides till all her keys, and, as one may fancy, her old
ribs clatter and jingle.
‘ Oh, Quiggett ! ’ sobs out Mrs. Lambert, ‘ what a man
that is ! ’
‘ You’ve been a-quarrelling, have you, mum, and making
it up ? That’s right.’
* Quarrel with him ? He never told a greater story.
My general is an angel, Quiggett. I should like to worship
him. I should like to fall down at his boots and kiss ’em.
CONTICUERE OMNES
527
I should 1 There never was a man so good as my general.
What have I done to have such a man V How dare I have
such a good husband ? ’
‘ My dear, I think there’s a pair of you,’ says the old
cockatoo ; ‘ and what would you like for your supper ? ’
When Lambert comes back very late to that meal, and
tells what has happened, how Harry is free, and how his
brother has come to life, and rescued him, you may fancy
'what a commotion the whole of those people are in ! If
Mrs. Lambert’s general was an angel before, what is he
now ? If she wanted to embrace his boots in the morning,
pray w^hat further office of wallowing degradation would
she prefer in the evening ? Little Hetty comes and nestles
up to her father quite silent, and drinks a little drop out
of his glass. Theo’s and mamma’s faces beam with happi-
ness, like two moons of brightness. . . . After supper,
those four at a certain signal fall down on their knees —
glad homage paying in awful mirth — ^rejoicing, and with
such pure joy as angels do, we read, for the sinner that
repents. There comes a great knocking at the door whilst
they are so gathered together. Who can be there ? My
lord is in the country miles off. It is past midnight now ;
so late have they b^n, so long have they been talking !
I think Mrs. Lambert guesses wffio is there.
‘ This is George,’ says a young gentleman, leading in
another. ‘ We have been to Aunt Bernstein. We couldn’t
go to bed. Aunt Lambert, without coming to thank you
too. You dear, dear, good There is no more speech
audible. Aunt Lambert is kissing Harry, Theo has snatched
up Hetty, who is as pale as death, and is hugging her into
life again. George Warrington stands with his hat off,
and then (when Harry’s transaction is concluded) goes up
and kisses Mrs. Lambert’s hand : the general passes his
across his eyes. I protest they are aU in a very tender
and happy state. Generous hearts sometimes feel it, when
Wrong is forgiven, when Peace is restored, when Love
returns that had been thought lost.
‘ We came from Aunt Bernstein’s ; we saw lights here,
you see, we couldn’t go to sleep without saying good night
to you aU,’ says Harry, ‘ Cordd we, George ? ’
" ’Tis certainly a famous nightcap you have brought us,
boys,’ says the general. ‘ W^en are you to come and dine
528
THE VIRGINIANS
with us ? To-morrow ? ’ No, they must go to Madame
Bemstein^s to-morrow. The next day, then ? Yes, they
would come the next day — ^and that is the very day we
are writing about : and this is the very dinner at which,
in the room of Lieutenant-Colonel James Wolfe, absent on
private affairs, my gracious reader has just been invited
to sit down.
To sit down, and why, if you please ? Not to a mere
Barmecide dinner — ^no, no — but to hear Mb. Geobge
Esmond Waerington’s Statement, which of course he
is going to make. Here they all sit — ^not in my lord’s
grand dining-room, you know% but in the snug study or
parlour in front. The cloth has been withdrawn, the
general has given the king’s health, the servants have left
the room, the gu^ts sit conticent, and so, after a little
hemming and blushing, Mr. George proceeds : —
‘ I remember, at the table of our general, how the little
Philadelphia agent, whose wit and shrewdness we had
remarked at home, made the very objections to the con-
duct of the campaign of which its disastrous issue showed
the justice. “ Of course,” says he, “ your excellency’s
troops once before Fort Duqu^ne, such a weak little place
will never be able to resist such a general, such an army,
such artillery, as wiU there be found attacking it. But
do you calculate, sir, on the difficulty of reaciiing the
place ? Your excellency’s march will be through woods
almost untrodden, over roads w^hich you will have to make
yourself, and your line will be some four miles long. This
slender line having to make iis way through the forest,
will be subject to endless attacks in front, in rear, in flank,
by enemies whom you will never see, and whose constant
practice in war is the dexterous laying of ambuscades.” —
Psha, rir ! ” says the general, the savages may frighten
your raw American militia ” (Thank your excellency for
the compliment, Mr. Washin^n seems to say, who is
sitting at the table), “ but the Indians will never make any
impression on his Majesty’s regular troops.” — “ I heartily
hope not, sir,” says Mr. Franklin, with a sigh ; and of
course the gentlemen of the general’s family sneered at
the postmaster, as at a pert civilian w^ho h^ no call to
be giving his opinion on matters entirely beyond his com-
prehension.
* We despsed the Indians on our own side, and our
CONTICUERE O^^fNES
520
commander made light of them and their service. Our
officers disgusted the chiefs who w'ere vntli us by out-
rageous behaviour to their women. There 'was not above
seven or eight who remained with our force. Had wre had
a couple of hundred in our front on that fatal 9th of July,
the event of the day must have been very different. They
would have flung off the attack of the French Indians ;
they would have prevented the surprise and panic which
ensued. ’Tis known now that the French had even got
ready to give up their fort, never dreaming of the possibiHty
of a defence, and that the French Indians themselves
remonstrated against the audacity of attacking such an
over'whelming force as ours.
‘ I was with our general with the main body of the
troops when the firing began in front of us, and one aide
de camp after another wras sent forw’ards. At first the
enemy’s attack was answered briskly by our own advanced
people, and our men huzzaed and cheered with good heart.
But very soon our fire grew slacker, whilst from behind
every tree and bush round about us came single shots,
which laid man after man low'. We w'ere marching in
orderly line, the skirmishers in front, the colours and two
of our small guns in the centre, the baggage w'ell guarded
bringing up the rear, and were moving over a ground
which was open and clear for a mile or two, and for some
half mile in breadth a thick tangled covert of brushwood
and trees on either side of us. After the firing had continued
for some brief time in front, it opened from both sides of
the environing wood on our advancing column. The men
dropped rapidly, the officers in greater number than the
men. At first, as I said, these cheered and answ'ered the
enemy’s fire, our guns even opening on the wnod, and
seeming to silence the French in ambuscade there. But
the hidden rifle-firing began again. Our men halted,
huddled up together, in spite of the shouts and orders of
the general and officers to advance, and fired wildly into
the brushw'ood — of course making no impression. Those
in advance came running back on the main body frightened
and many of them wounded. They reported there w^ere
five thousand Frenchmen and a legion of yelling Indian
devils in front, wiio w'ere scalping our people as they feU.
We could hear their cries from the w^ood around as our
men dropped under their rifles. There w'as no inducing
530
THE VIBGINIANS
the p^ple to go fomard now. One aide de camp after
another was sent forward, and never returned. At last it
came to be my turn, and I was sent witji a message to
Captain Fraser of Haikett’s in front, which he w'as never
to receive nor I to deliver.
‘ I had not gone thirty yards in advance when a rifle-
ball struck my leg, and I fell straightway to the ground.
I recollect a rush forward of Indians and Frenchmen after
that, the former crying their fiendish war-cries, the latter
as fierce as their savage allies. I was amazed and mortified
to see how few of the w^hite-coats there were. Not above
a score passed me ; indeed there were not fifty in the
accursed action in which two of the bravest regiments of
the British army were put to rout.
‘ One of them, who was half Indian half Frenchman,
with mocassins and a white uniform coat and cockade,
seeing me prostrate on the ground, turned back and ran
towards me, his musket clubbed over his head to dash
my brains out and plunder me as I lay. I had my little
fusil which my Harry gave me when I went on the cam-
paign ; it had fallen by me and within my reach luckily ;
I seiz^ it and down fell the Frenchman dead at six yards
before me. I was saved for that time, but bleeding from
my wound, and very faint. I swooned almost in trying
to load my piece, and it dropped from my hand, and the
hand itself sank lifeless to the ground.
‘ I was scarcely in my senses, the yells and shots ringing
dimly in my ears, when I saw an Indian before me, busied
over the body of the Frenchman I had just shot, but
glancing towards me as I lay on the ground bleeding. He
first rifled the Frenchman, tearing open his coat, and feeling
in his pockets : he then scalped him, and with his bleeding
knife in his mouth advanced towards me. I saw him
coming as through a film, as in a dream — I was powerless
to move, or to resist him.
He put his knee upon my chest : with one bloody
hand he seized my long hair and lifted my head from the
ground, and as he lifted it, he enabled me to see a French
officer rapidly advancing behind him.
‘ Good God ! It was young Florae, who was my second
in the duel at Quebec. ‘‘A moz. Florae 1^^ I cried out,
(Test Georges / aide-md / ”
‘ He started ; ran up to me at the cry, laid his hand
CONTICUERE OMNES
531
on the Indian’s shoulder, and called him to hold. But
the savage did not understand French, or choose to under-
stand it. He clutched my hair firmer, and waving his
dripping knife round it, motioned to the French lad to
leave him to, his prey. I could only cry out again and
piteously, “ A moi ! ”
‘ “ Ah, Camille, tu veux du sang ? PrendsI ” said Florae,
with a curse ; and the next moment, and with an tigk,
the Indian fell over my chest dead, with Florae’s sword
through his body.
‘ My friend looked round him. “ Eh / ” says he, “ la
belie affaire! Where art thou wounded, in the leg ? ” He
bound my leg tight round with his sash. “ The others
will kill thee if they find thee here. Ah, tiens ! Put^ me
on this coat, and this hat with the white cockade. Call
out in IVench if any of our people pass. They will take
thee for one of us. Thou art Brunet of the Quebec Volun-
teers. God guard thee, Brunet ! I must go forward. ’Tis
a general debacle, and the whole of your red-coats are on
the run, my poor boy.” Ah, what a rout it was 1 What
a day of disgrace for England !
‘ Florae’s rough application stopped the bleeding of my
leg, and the kind creature helped me to rest against a tree,
and to load my fusil, which he placed within reach of me,
to protect me in case any other marauder should have
a mind to attack me. And he gave me the gourd of that
unlucky French soldier, who had lost his own life in the
deadly game which he had just played against me, and
the (brink the gourd contained served greatly to refresh
and invigorate me. Taking a mark of the tree against
which I lay, and noting the various bearings of the country,
so as to be able again to find me, the young lad hastened
on to the front. ‘‘Thou seest how much I love thee,
George,” he said, “that 1 stay behind in a moment like
tliis.” I forget whether I told thee, Harry, that Florae
was under some obligation to me. 1 had won money of
him at cards, at Quebec — only playing at his repeated
entreaty — and there was a (bfficulty about paying, and
I remitted his debt to me, and lighted my pipe with his
note of hand. You see, sir, that you are not the only
gambler in the family.
‘At evening, when the dismal pursuit was over, the
faithful fellow came back to me, with a couple of Inciiahs,
532
THE VIRGINIAHS
who had each reeking scalps at their belts, and whom he
informed that I was a Frenchman, his brother, who had
been wounded early in the day, and must be carried back
to the fort. They laid me in one of their blankets, and
carried me, groaning, with the trusty Florae by my side.
Had he left me, they w’ould assuredly have laid me down,
plundered me, and ^ded my hair to that of the wretches
wh<^ bleeding spoils hung at their girdles. He promised
them brandy at the fort, if they brought me safely there.
I have but a dim recollection of the journey : the anguish
of my wound was extreme : I fainted more than once.
We came to the end of our march at last. I was taken
into the fort, and carried to the officers’ log-house, and
laid upon Florae’s own bed.
‘ Happy for me was my insensibility. 1 had been brought
into the fort as a wounded French soldier of the garrison.
I heard afterwards, that, during my delirium, the few
prisoners who had been made on the day of our disaster,
had been brought under the w^alls of Duquesne by their
savage captors, and there horribly burned, tortured, and
butchered by the Indians, under the eyes of the garrison.’
As George speaks, one may fancy a thrill of horror
running through his sympathizing audience. Theo takes
Hetty’s hand, and looks at George in a very alarmed man-
ner. Harry strikes his fist upon the table, and cries, ‘ The
bloody, murderous, red-skinned villains ! There will never
be peace for us until they are all hunted down.’
' They were offering a hundred and thirty dollars a piece
for Indian scalps in Pennsylvania when I left home,’ says
Geor^, demurely, ‘ and fifty for women.’
‘ Fifty for women, my love ! Do you hear that, Mrs.
Lambert ? ’ cries the colonel, lifting up his wife’s hair.
‘ The murderous villains ! ’ says Harry, again. ^ Hunt
’em down, sir ! Hunt ’em down ! ’
‘ I know not how long I lay in my fever,’ George resumed.
‘ When I awoke to my senses, my dear Florae was gone.
He and his company had been dispatched on an enterprise
against an English fort on the Pennsylvanian territory,
which the French claimed, too. In Duquesne, when I came
to be able to ask and understand what was said to me,
there were not above thirty Europeans left. The place
might have been taken over and over again, had any of
our people had the courage to return after their disaster.
CONTICUERE OMNES
533
‘My old enemy tlie ague-fever set iu again upon me
as I lay here by the river-side. ’Tis a wonder how I ever
survived- But for the goodness of a lialf-breed w’oman in
the fort, who took pity on me, and tended me, I never
should have recovered, and my poor Harry would be what
he fancied himself yesterday, our grandfather’s heir, our
mother’s only son.
‘ I remembered how’, wlien Florae laid me in his bed, he
put under my pillow my money, my \vateh, and a trinket
or Wo which I had. When I woke to myself these were
all gone ; and a surly old sergeant, the only oflSicer left in
the quarter, told me, with a curse, that I was lucky enough
to be left with my life at all ; that it w’as only my white
cockade and coat had saved me from the fate which the
other caimille of Eoshifs had deservedly met with.
‘ At the time of my recovery the fort w^as almost emptied
of the garrison. The Indians had retired enriched with
British plunder, and the chief part of the French regulars
were gone upon expeditions northward. My good Florae
had left me upon his service, consigning me to the care
of an invalided sergeant. Monsieur de Contrecoeur had
accompanied one of these expeditions, leaving an old
lieutenant, Museau by name, in command at Duquesne.
‘ This man had long been out of France, and serving in
the colonies. His character, doubtl^, had been indifferent
at home ; and he knew that, according to the system
pursued in France, where almost all promotion is given to
the noblesse, he never w^ould advance in rank. And he
had made free with my guineas, I suppose, as he had with
my watch, for I saw^ it one day on his chest when I was
sitting with him in his quarter.
‘ Monsieur Museau and I managed to be pretty good
friends. If I could be exchanged, or sent home, I told
him that my mother would pay liberally for my ransom ;
and I suppose this idea excited the cupidity of the com-
mandant, for a trapper coming in the winter, w’hilst I still
lay very ill with fever, Museau consented that I should
write home to my mother, but that the letter should be
in French, that he should see it, and that I should say
I was in the hands of the Indians, and should not be ran-
somed under ten thousand livres.
‘ In vain I said I w^as a prisoner to the troops of his
Most Christian Majesty, that I expected the treatment
534
THE VIRGINIANS
of a gentleman and an officer. Museau swore that letter
should go, and no other ; that if I hesitated, he would
fling me out of the fort, or hand me over to the tender
mercies of his ruffian Indian allies. He would not let
the trapper communicate with me except in his presence.
Life and liberty are sweet. I resisted for a while, but
I was pulled dovm with weakness, and shuddering with
fever ; I wTote such a letter as the rascal consented to
let pass, and the trapper went away with my missive, wffich
he promised, in three wrecks, to deliver to my mother in
Virginia.
‘Three weeks, six, twelve, passed. The messenger
never returned. The winter came and went, and aU our
little plantations round the fort, where the French soldiers
had cleared corn-ground and planted gardens and peach-
and apple-trees down to the Monongahela, were in full
blossom. Heaven know’s how I crept through the weary
time ! When I was pretty well, I made drawings of the
soldiers of the garrison, and of the half-breed and her child
(Museau’s child), and of Museau himself, whom, I am
ashamed to say, I flattered outrageously ; and there was
an old guitar left in the fort, and I sang to it, and played on
it some French airs which I knew, and ingratiated myself
as best I could with my gaolers ; and so the weary months
pa^ed, but the messenger never returned.
‘At last new^s arriv^ that he had been shot by some
British Indians in Maryland ; so there was an end of my
hope of ransom for some months more. This made Museau
very savage and surly towards me; the more so as his
sergeant inflamed his ra^e by telling him that the Indian
woman was partial to me — ^as I believe, poor thing, she was.
I was always gentle with her, and grateful to her. My
small accomplishments seemed wonders in her eyes ; I was
iU and unhappy, too, and these are alw^ays claims to a
woman’s affection.
‘ A captive pulled dowm by malady, a ferocious gaoler,
and a young w oman touched by the prisoner’s misfortunes —
sure you expect that with these three prime characters
in a piece, some pathetic tragedy is going to be enacted ?
You, Miss Hetty, are about to guess that the woman
saved me V ’
‘ Why, of course, she did ! ’ cries mamma.
‘ What else is she good for ? ’ says Hetty.
COOTICUERE OMNES
537
*You, Miss Theo, have painted her already as a dark
beauty — ^is it not so ? A swift huntress ? ’
* Diana with a baby,’ says the colonel.
‘ — Who scours the plain with her nymphs, 'who brings
dow’n the game with her unerring bow% who is queen of the
forest — ^and I see by your looks that you think I am madly
in love with her ? ’
‘ Well, I suppose she is an interesting creature, Mr.
George ? ’ says Theo, with a blush.
‘ What think you of a dark beauty, the colour of new
mahogany ? with long straight black hair, which was
usually dressed with a hair-oU or pomade by no means
pleasant to approach, with little eyes, with high cheek-
bones, with a flat nose, sometimes ornamented with a ring,
with rows of glass beads round her tawmy throat, her
cheeks and forehead gracefully tattooed, a great love of
finery, and inordinate passion for — Oh ! must I own
it
‘ For coquetry. I know you are going to say that ! ’
says Miss Hetty.
‘For whisky, my dear Miss Hester — in which appetite
my gaoler partook ; so that I have often sat by, on the
nights when I was in favour with Monsieur Museau, and
s^n him and his poor companion hob-and-nobbing together
until they could scarce hold the noggin out of which they
drank. In these evening entertainments, they would sing,
they w^ould dance, they would fondle, they would quarrel,
and knock the cans and furniture about ; and, v/hen I was
in favour, I was admitted to share their society, for Museau,
jealous of his dignity, or not willing that his men should
wdtness his behaviour, w^ould allow none of them to be
familiar with him.
‘ Whilst the result of the trapper’s mission to my home
was yet uncertain, and Museau and I myseK expected the
payment of my ransom, I w^as treated kindly enough,
allowed to crawl about the fort, and even to go into the
adjoining fields and gardens, alw’ays keeping my parole,
and duly returning before gun-fire. And I exercised
a piece of hypocrisy, for which, I hope, you will hold me
excused. \?^en my leg w’as sound (the ball came out in
the winter, after some pain and inflammation, and the
wound healed up presently), I yet chose to walk as if I was
disabled and a cripple ; I hobbled on two sticks, and cried
53S
THE VIKGINIANS
Ah ! and Oh ! at every minute, hoping that a day might
come when I might treat my limbs to a run.
‘ Museau was very savage when he began to give up all
hopes of the first messenger. He fancied that the man
might have got the ransom-money and fled with it himself.
Of course he w^as prepared to disown any part in the trans-
action, should my letter be discovered. His treatment of
me varied according to his hopes or fears, or even his
mood for the time being. He would have me consigned
to my quarters for several days at a time ; then invite
me to his tipsy supper-table, quarrel with me there and
abuse my nation ; or again break out into maudlin senti-
mentalities about his native country of Normandy, where
he longed to spend his old age, to buy a field or two, and
to die happy.
* “ Eh, Monsieur Museau ! ” says I, “ ten thousand
livres of your money would buy a pretty field or two in
your native country ? You can have it for the ransom of
me, if you will but let me go. In a few^ months you must
be superseded in your command here, and then adieu the
crowns and the fields in Normandy ! You had better
trust a gentleman and a man of honour. Let me go home,
and I give you my word the ten thousand livres shall be
paid to any agent you may appoint in France or in Quebec.”
‘ “ Ah, young traitor ! ” roars he, “ do you wish to tamper
with my honour ? Do you believe an officer of France
will take a bribe ? I have a mind to consign thee to my
black-hole, and to have thee shot m the morning.”
‘ “ My poor body wiU never fetch ten thousand livres,”
says I ; and a pretty field in Normandy with a cottage . . ”
‘ “ And an orchard. Ah, sacre Ueu ! ” says Museau,
whimpering, “ and a dish of tripe d la mode du pays
‘This talk happened between us again and again, and
Museau would order me to my quarters, and then ask me
to supper the next night, and return to the subject of Nor-
mandy, and cider, and trippes d la mode de Caen. My
friend is dead now ’
‘ He was hung, I trust ? ’ breaks in Colonel Lambert.
‘ — ^And I need keep no secret about him. Ladies,
I wish I had to offer you the account of a dreadful and
trj^ical escape ; how' I slew all the sentinels of the fort ;
fil^ through the prison windows, destroyed a score or
so of watchful dragons, overcame a million of dangers.
CONTICUERE OmES
539
and finally effected my freedom. But, in regard of that
matter, I have no heroic deeds to tell of, and o\to that,
by bribery and no other means, I am where I am."
‘But you would have fought, Georgy, if need were,"
says Harry ; ‘ and you couldn’t conquer a whole garrison,
you know ! ’ And herewith Mr. Harry blushed very much.
‘ See the women, how disappointed they are ! ’ says
Lambert. ‘Mrs. Lambert, you bloodthirsty woman, own
that you are balked of a battle ; and look at Hetty, quite
angry because Mr. George did not shoot the commandant.’
^You wished he was hung yourself, papa ! ’ cries Miss
Hetty, ‘ and I am sure I wish anything my papa wishes.’
‘ Nay, ladies,’ says George, turning a little red, ‘ to wink
at a prisoner’s escape was not a very monstrous crime ;
and to take money ? Sure, other folks besides Frenchmen
have condescend^ to a bribe before now. Although
Monsieur Museau set me free, I am inclined, for my part,
to forgive him. Will it please you to hear how that business
was done ? You see, Miss Hetty, I cannot help being
alive to tell it,’
‘ Oh, George ! — that is, I mean, Mr. Warrington ! — that
is, I mean, I beg your pardon ! ’ cries Hester.
* No pardon, my dear ! I never was angry yet or sur-
prised that any one should like my Harry better than me.
He deserves all the liking that any man or woman can give
him. See, it is Ms turn to blush now,’ says Geoige.
‘ Go on, Georgy, and teU them about the escape out of
Duquesne ! ’ cries Harry, and he said to Mrs. Lambert
afterwards in confidence, ‘You know he is always going
on saying that he ought never to have come to life again,
and declaring that I am better than he is. The idea of
my being better than George, Mrs. Lambert I a poor,
extravagant fellow like me I It’s absurd 1 ’
540
THE YIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LII
IXTENTIQtTE OEA TENEBANT
E continued for months our
weary life at the fort, and the
commandant and I had our
quarrels and reconciliations,
our greasy games at cards,
our dismal duets with his
asthmatic flute and my cracked
guitar. The poor Fawn took
her beatings and her cans of
liquor as her lord and master
chose to administer them ; and
she nursed her papoose, or her
master in the gout, or her
prisoner in the ague ; and so
matters went on until the beginning of the fall of last year,
when we were visited by a hunter who had important news
to deliver to the commandant, and such as set the little
garrison in no little excitement. The Marquis de Montcalm
had sent a considerable detachment to garrison the forts
already in the French hands, and to take up farther positions
in the enemy’s — that is, in the British — ^possessions. The
troops had left Quebec and Montreal, and were coming
up the St. Lawrence and the lakes in bateaux, with artillery
and large provisions of warlike and other stores. Museau
would be superseded in his command by an officer of
superior rank, who might exchange me, or who might give
me up to’ the Indians in reprisal for cruelties practised
by our own people on many and many an officer and
soldier of the enemy. The men of the fort were eager
for the reinforcements ; they wnuld advance into Penn-
sylvania and New York ; they would seize upon Albany
and Philadelphia ; they would drive the Rosbifs into the
sea, and all America should be theirs from the Mississippi
to Newfoundland.
‘ This was all very triumphant : but, yet, somehow the
prospect of the French conque^ did not add to Mr. Museau’s
satMaction.
INTENTIQUE ORA TENEBANT
541
‘ “ Eh, commandant ! ” says I, “ 'tis fort bien, but mean-
while your farm in Normandy, the pot of cider, and the
trippes d la mode de Caen, where are they ? ”
‘ Yes ; ’tis all very well, my garQon'" says he. But
where will you be when poor old Museau is superseded ?
Other officers are not good companions like me. Very few
men in the world have my humanity. When there is
a great garrison here, will my successors give thee the
indulgences which hon^t Museau has granted thee ?
Thou wilt be kept in a sty like a pig ready for killing. As
sure as one of our officers falls into the liands of your
brigands of frontiermen, and evil comes to him, so surely
wilt thou have to pay with thy skin for his. Thou wilt
be given up to our red allies — to the brethren of La Biche
yonder. Didst thou see, last year, w^hat they did to thy
countrymen whom we took in the action with Braddock ?
Roasting was the very smallest punishment, ma foi — was
it not, La Biche ? ’’
‘And he entered into a variety of jocular descriptions
of tortures inflicted, eyes burned out of their sockets, teeth
and nails wrenched out, limbs and bodies gashed You
turn pale, dear Miss Theo ! Well, I will have pity, and
will spare you the tortures which honest Museau recounted
in his pleasant way as likely to befall me.
‘ La Biche was by no means so affected as you seem to
be, ladies, by the recital of these horrors. She had wit-
nessed them in her time. She came from the Senecas,
whose villages lie near the great cataract between Ontario
and Erie; her people made war for the English, and
against them : they had fought with other tribes ; and,
in the battles between us and them, it is difficult to say
whether white skin or red skin is most savage.
‘ “ They may chop me into cutlets and broil me, ’tis
true, commandant,” say I coolly. “ But again, I say, you
will never have the farm in Normandy.”
‘ “ Go get the whisky bottle. La Biche,” says Museau.
‘ “ And it is not too late, even now. I will give the
guide who takes me home a large reward. And again
I say I promise, as a man of honour, ten thousand livres
to — whom shall I say ? to any one who shall bring me any
token — who shall bring me, say, my watch and seal with
my grandfather’s arms — which I have seen in a chest
somewffiere in tliis fort. ”
542
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ sceUrcU / ” roars out the commandant, with a hoarse
yell of laughter. Thou hast eyes, thou ! All is good
prize in war.”
‘ ‘‘ Think of a house in your village, of a fine field hard
by with a half-dozen of cows — of a fine orchard aU covered
with fruit.”
‘ “ And Javotte at the door with her wheel, and a rascal
of a child or two, with cheeks as red as the apples ! 0 my
country ! 0 my mother I ” whimpers out the com-
mandant. “ Quick, La Biche, the whisky ! ”
* All that night the commandant was deep in thought,
and La Biche too, silent and melancholy. She sat away
from us, nulling her child, and whenever my eyes turned
towards her I saw hers were fixed on me. The poor little
infant began to cry, and was ordered away by Museau,
with his usual foul language, to the building which the
luckless Biche occupied with her child. When she was
gone we both of us spoke our minds freely ; and I put such
reasons before monsieur as his cupidity could not resist.
‘ *\How do you know,” he asked, “ that this hunter wiU
serve you ? ”
* “ That is my secret,” says I. But here, if you like, as we
are not on honour, I may tell it. When they come into the
settlements for their bargains, the hunters often stop
a day or two for rest and drink and company, and our
new friend loved all these. He played at cards with the
men : he set his furs against their liquor : he enjoyed
himself at the fort, singing, dancing, and gambling with
them. I think I said they liked to listen to my songs,
and for want of better things to do, I was often singing and
guitar scraping : and we would have many a concert, the
men joining in chorus, or dancing to my homely music,
until it was interrupt^ by the drums and the retraite.
* Our guest the hunter was present at one or two of these
concerts, and I thought I wwld try if possibly he under-
stood English. After we had had our little stock of French
songs, I said, “ My lads, I will give you an English song,”
and to the tune of **Over the hills and far away”, which
my good old grandfather used to hum as a favourite air
in Marlborough’s camp, I made some doggerel words : —
“ This long, long year, a prisoner drear ; Ah, me ! I’m
tired of lingering here : I’ll give a hundred guineas gay,
To be over the hills and far away.”
INTENTIQUE ORA lENEBAHT
543
* “ What is it ? ” says the hunter, ‘‘ I don’t understand.”
‘ “ ’Tis a girl to her lover,” I answered ; but I saw by
the twinkle in the man’s eye that he understood me.
‘ The next day, when there were no men within hearing,
the trapper showed that I was right in my conjecture, for
as he passed me he hummed in a low tone, but in perfectly
good English, “ Over the hills and far away,” the burthen
of my yesterday’s doggerel.
‘ “ If you are ready,” says he, “ I am ready. I know who
your people are, and the way to them. Talk to the Fawn,
and she will tell you what to do. What ! You will not
play with me ? ” Here he pulled out some cards, and
spoke in French, as two soldiers came up. ‘‘Milor est
trop grand seigneur ? Bonjour, my lord ! ”
‘ And the man made me a mock bow, and walked away
shrugging up his shoulders, to offer to play and drink
elsewhere.
* I knew now that the Biehe was to be the agent in the
affair, and that my offer to Museau was accepted. The
poor Fawn performed her part very faithfully and dex-
terously, I had not need of a word more with Museau ;
the matter was understood betw^een us. The Fawn had
long been allowed free communication with me. She had
tended me during my wnund and in my illnesses, helped
to do the work of my little chamber, my cooking, and so
forth. She was free to go out of the fort, as I have said,
and to the river and the fields w’hence the com and garden-
stuff of the little garrison w ere brought in.
‘Having gambled away most of the money which he
received for his peltries, the trapper now got together
his store of flints, pow’der, and blankets, and took his leave.
And, three days after his departure, the Fawn gave me the
signal that the time w^as come for me to make my little
trial for freedom.
‘When first wounded, I had been taken by my kind
Florae and placed on his bed in the officers’ room. When
the fort was emptied of all officers except the old lieutenant
left in command, I had been allow’ed to remain in my
quarters, sometimes being left pretty free, sometimes being
locked up and fed on prisoners’ rations, sometimes invited
to share his mess by my tipsy gaoler. This officers’ house,
or room, was of logs like the half-dozen others within the
fort, which mounted only four guns of small calibre, of
544
THE VIRGINIANS
which one was on the bastion behind my cabin. Looking
westward over this gun, you could see a small island at
the confluence of the two rivers Ohio and Monongahela
whereon Duquesne is situated. On the shore opposite
this island were some trees.
‘ “ You see those trees ? my poor Biche said to me the
day before, in her French jargon. ‘‘ He wait for you behind
those trees.”
‘ In the daytime the door of my quarters was open, and
the Biche free to come and go. On the day before, she
came in from the fields with a pick in her hand and a basket-
ful of vegetable and pot-herbs for soup. She eat down on
a bench at my door, the pick resting against it, and the
basket at her side. I stood talking to her for a while ;
but I believe I was so idiotic that I never should have
thought of putting the pick to may use had she not actually
pushed it into my open door, so that it fell into my room.
Hide it,” she said ; want it soon.” And that afternoon
it was, she pointed out the trees to me.
‘ On the next day, she comes, pretending to be very angry,
and calls out, “ My lord ! my lord ! why you not come
to commandant’s dmner? He very bad! Entendez-vous ? ”
And she peeps into the room as she speaks, and flings a
coil of rope at me.
^ ‘‘ I am coming. La Biche,” says I, and hobbled after
her on my crutch. As I went into the commandant’s
quarters she says, ‘‘ Pour ce soir.” And then I knew the
time was come^
‘As for Museau, he knew nothing about the matter.
Not he ! He growled at me, and said the soup was cold.
He looked me steadily in the face, and talked of this
and that; not only whilst his servant was present, but
afterwards when we smoked our pipes and played our
game at piquet ; whilst, according to her wont, the poor
Biche sat cowering in a comer.
‘ My friend’s whisky-bottle was empty ; and he said,
with rather a knowing look, he must have another glass —
we must both have a glass that night. And, rising from
the table, he stumped to the inner room, where he kept
his fire-water under lock and key, and away from the poor
Biche, who could not resist that temptation.
‘ As he turned his back the Biche raised herself ; and
he was no sooner gone but she was at my feet, kissing my
INTENTIQUE ORA TENEBANT
545
hand, pressing it to her heart, and bursting into tears over
my knees. I confess I was so troubled by this testimony
of the poor creature’s silent attachment and fondn^, the
extent of which I scarce had suspected before, that when
Museau returned, I had not recovered my equanimity,
though the poor Pawn w^as back in her corner again and
shrouded in her blanket.
‘ He did not appear to remark anything strange in the
behaviour of either. We sat down to our game, though
my thoughts were so preoccupied that I scarcely knew
what cards were before me.
‘ I gain everything from you to-night, milor,” says
he, griinly. We play upon parole.”
^ “ And you may count upon mine,” I replied.
‘ “ Eh ! ’tis all that you have ! ” says he.
‘ “ Monsieur,” says I, “ my word is good for ten thousand
livres ; ” and we continued our game.
‘ At last he said he had a headache, and would go to bed,
and I understood the orders too, that I was to retire. I
wish you a good night, mon petit milor,” says he, — stay,
you will fall without your crutch,” — and his eyes twinkl^
at me, and his face wore a sarcastic grin. In the agitation
of the moment I had quite forgotten that I was lame, and
was walking away at a pace as good as a grenadier’s.
‘ “ What a vilain night ! ” says he, looking out. In fact
there was a tempest abroad, and a great roaring, and wind.
“ Bring a lanthom, La Tulipe, and lock my lord comfortably
into his quarters ! ” He stood a moment looking at me
from his own door, and I saw a glimpse of the poor Biche
behind him.
‘ The night -was so rainy that the sentries preferred
their boxes, and did not disturb me in my work. The log-
house was built with upright posts, deeply fixed in the
ground, and horizontal logs laid upon it. I had to dig
under these, and work a hole sufficient to admit my body
to pass. I began in the dark, soon after tattoo. It was
some while after midnight before my w^ork w^as done, when
I lifted my hand up under the log and felt the rain from
without falling upon it. I had to work very cautiously
for two hours after that, and then crept through to the
parapet and silently fiung my rope over the gun ; not
without a little tremor of heart, lest the sentry should
see me and send a charge of lead into my body.
VIRGINIANS T
546
THE VIRGmiANS
* The wall was but twelve feet, and my fall into the ditch
easy enough. I w^aited a while there, looking steadily
under the gun, and trying to see the river and the island.
I heard the sentry pacing up above and humming a tune.
The darkness became more clear to me ere long, and the
moon rose, and I saw the river shining before me, and the
dark rocks and trees of the island rising in the waters.
‘ I made for this mark as s\\’iftly as I could, and for the
clump of trees to which I had been directed. Oh, what
a relief I had when I heard a low voice humming there,
‘‘ Over the hills and far away ! ’’ ’
When Mr. George came to this part of his narrative,
Miss Theo, who was seated by a harpsichord, turned round
and dash^ off the tune on the instrument, whilst all the
little company broke out into the merry chorus.
‘ Our way,’ the speaker went on, ‘ lay through a level
tract of fore^ with which my guide was familiar, upon the
right bank of the Monongahela. By daylight we came to
a clearer country, and my trapper asked me — Silverheels
was the name by which he went~had I ever seen the spot
before ? It was the fatal field where Braddock had falfen,
and whence I had been wonderfully rescued in the
summ^ of the previous year. Now, the leaves were
beginning to be tinted with the magnificent hues of our
autumn.’
‘ Ah, brother ! ’ cries Harry, seizing his brother’s hand,
‘ I was gambling and making a fool of myself at the WeUs
and in London, when my George was fljdng for his life
in the wildem^ I Oh, what a miserable spendthrift
I have been ! ’
‘But I think thou art not unworthy to be called thy
mother’s son,’ said Mrs. Lambert very softly, and with
moistened eyes. Indeed, if Harry had erred, to mark
his repentance, his love, his unsel&h joy and generosity,
was to feel that there was hope for the humbled and kind
young sinner.
‘ We presently crossed the river,’ George resumed, ‘ taking
our course along the base of the western slopes of the
Alleghanies ; and through a grand forest region of oaks and
maple, and enormous poplars that grow a hundred feet
high without a branch. It was the Indians whom we had
to avoid, besides the outlying parties of French. Always
of doubtful loyalty, the savages have been specially against
INTENTIQUE ORA TENEBAKT
547
us since our ill-treatment of them, and the French triumph
over us tv'o years ago.
‘ I was but weak still, and our journey through the
wilderness lasted a fortnight or more. As we advanced,
the woods became redder and redder. The frost nipped
sharply of nights. We lighted fires at our feet, and slept
in our blankets as best we might. At this time of year,
the hunters who live in the mountains get their sugar from
the maples. We came upon more than one such family,
camping near their trees by the mountain streams ; and
they welcomed us at their fir^, and gave us of their
venison. So we passed over the two ranges of the Laurel
Hills and the AUeghanies. The last day’s march of my
trusty guide and myself took us down that wild, magni-
ficent pass of Will’s Creek, a valley lying between clife near
a thousand feet high — bald, w'hite, and broken into towers
like huge fortifications, with eagles wheeling round the
summits of the rocks, and watching their nests among the
crags.
*And hence we descended to Cumberland, whence we
had marched in the year before, and where there was now
a considerable garrison of our people. Oh, you may think
it was a welcome day when I saw English colours again
on the banks of our native Potomac ! ’
548
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LIII
WHEEE WE REaiilN AT THE C30UET EN3> OP THE TOWN
EORGE Warrington
had related the
same story, which
-we have just heard,
to Madame de Bern-
stein on the previous
evening — a portion,
that is, of the his-
tory ; for the old
lady nodded off to
sleep many times
during the narration,
only waking up when
George paused, say-
ing it was most
interesting ; and
ordering him to con-
tinue. The young gentleman hemmed and ha’d, and
stuttered, and blushed, and went on, much against his will,
and did not speak half so well as he did to his friendly
little auditory in Hill Street, where Hetty’s eyes of wonder
and Theo’s sympathizing glances, and mamma’s kind
face, and papa’s funny looks, were applause sufficient
to cheer any modest youth who requir^ encouragement
for his eloquence. As for mamma’s behaviour the general
said, ’twas as good as Mr. Addison’s trunkmaker, and she
would make the fortune of any tragedy by simply being
engaged to cry in the front boxes. That is why we chose
my Lford Wrotham’s house as the theatre w^here George’s
first piece should be performed, wishing that he should
speak to advantage, and not as when he was heard by that
sleepy, cynical old lady, to whom he had to narrate his
adventures.
‘Very good and most interesting, I am sure, my dear
sir,’ says Madame Bernstein, putting up three pretty
little fingers covered with a lace mitten, to hide a convulsive
THE COURT END OF THE TOWN
549
movement of her mouth. ‘ And your mother must have
been delighted to see you.’
George shrugged his shoulders ever so little, and made
a low bow, as his aunt looked up at him for a moment with
her keen, old eyes.
‘ Have been delighted to see you,’ she continued dryly,
‘ and killed the fatted calf, and — and that kind of thing.
Though why I say calf, I don’t know, nephew George, for
you never were the prodigal. I may say calf to thee, my
poor Harry ! Thou hast been amongst the swine sure
enough. And evil companions have robbed the money
out of thy pocket and the coat off thy back.’
‘ He came to his family in England, madam,’ says George,
with some heat, ‘ and his friends were your ladyship’s.’
‘ He could not have come to w-orse advisers, nephew
Warrington, and so I should have told my sister earlier,
had she condescended to wTite to me by him, as she has
done by you,’ said the old lady, tossing up her head. ‘ Hey !
hey ! ’ she said, at night, to her w'aiting-maid, as she
arranged herself for the rout to which she was going,
‘ this young gentleman’s mother is half sorry that he has
come to life again, I could see that in his face. She is half
sorry, and I am perfectly furious 1 Why didn’t he lie
still when he dropped there under the tree, and why did
that young Florae carry him to the fort ? I knew those
Floracs when I was at Paris, in the time of Monsieur le
Regent. They w^ere of the Floracs of Ivry. No great
house before Henri IV. His ancestor was the king’s
favourite. His ancestor — he ! he ! — ^his ancestress ! Brett !
entendez-vous ? Give me my card-purse. I don’t like
the grand airs of this Monsieur George ; and yet he re-
sembles, very much, his grandfather — the same look and
sometimes the same tones. You have heard of Colonel
Esmond when I was young ? This boy has his eyes.
I suppose I liked the colonel’s, because he loved me.’
Being engaged, then, to a card-party, — an amusement
which she never missed, week-day or Sabbath, as long as
she had strength to hold trumps or sit in a chair, — very
soon after George had ended his narration, the old lady
dismissed her two nephews, giving to the elder a couple
of fingers and a very stately curtsy ; but to Hax'ry two
hands and a kindly pat on the cheek.
‘ My poor child, now’ thou art disinherited, thou wilt
550
THE VIRGINIANS
see how differently the world will use thee ! ’ she said.
‘There is only, in all London, a wicked, heartless old
woman w^ho will treat thee as before. Here is a pocket-
book for you, child ! Do not lose it at Ranelagh to-night.
That suit of yours does not become your brother half so
well as it sat upon you I You will present your brother
to everybody, and walk up and dowm the room for two
hours at least, child. Were I you, I w'ould then go to the
Chocolate-house, and play as if nothing had happened.
Whilst you are there, your brother may come back to me
and eat a bit of chicken with me. My lady Flint gives
WTetched suppers, and I want to talk his mother’s letter
over with him. Au revoir, gentlemen ! ’ and she w’ent
aw^ay to her toilette. Her chairmen and flambeaux were
already w’aiting at the door.
The gentlemen went to Ranelagh, where but a few' of
Mr. Harry’s acquaintances chanc^ to be present. They
paced the round, and met Mr. Tom Claypool with some
of his country friends ; they heard the music ; they drank
tea in a box ; Harry w'as master of ceremonies, and intro-
duced his brother to the curiosities of the place ; and
George was even more excited than his brother had been
on his first introduction to this palace of delight. George
loved music much more than Harry ever did ; he heard a
full orchestra for the first time, and a piece of Mr. Handel
satisfactorily performed ; and a not unpleasing instance of
Harry’s humility and regard for his elder brother was,
that he could even hold Geoi^e’s love of music in respect
at a time when fiddling was voted effeminate and unmanly
in England, and Britons w'ere, every day, called upon by
the patriotic prints to sneer at the frivolous accomplish-
ments of your Squallinis, Monsieurs, and the like. Nobody
in Britain is proud of his ignorance now'. There is no
conceit left among us. There is no such thing as dullness.
Arrogance is entirely unknown . . . Well, at any rate.
Art has obtained her letters of naturalization, and lives here
on terms of almost equality. If Mrs. Thrale chose to
marry a music-master now', I don’t think her friends would
shudder at the mention of her name. If she had a good
fortune and kept a good cook, people would even go and
dine with her in spite of the mesalliance, and actually treat
Mr. Piozzi with civility.
After Ranelagh, and pursuant to Madame Bernstein’s
THE COURT END OF THE TOWN
551
advice, George returned to her ladyship’s houee, whilst
Harry showed himself at the club, where gentlemen were
accustomed to assemble at night to sup, and then to gamble.
No one of course alluded to Mr. Warrington’s little tem-
porary absence, and Mr. Ruff, his ex-landlord, waited
upon him with the utmost gravity and civility, and as if
there had never been any difference between them. Mr.
Warrington had caused his trunks and habiliments to be
conveyed away from Bond Street in the morning, and he
and his brother were now established in apartments else-
where.
But when the supper was done, and the gentlemen as
usual were about to seek the macco-table upstairs, Harry
said he was not going to play any more. He had burned
his fingers already, and could afford no more extravagance.
‘Why,’ says Mr. Morris, in a rather flippant manner,
‘ you must have won more than you have lost, Mr. War-
rington, after all said and done.’
‘ And of course I don’t know my own business as well
as you do, Mr. Morris,’ says Harry, sternly, who had not
forgotten the other’s behaviour on hearing of his arrest ;
‘ but I have another reason. A few months or days ago,
I was heir to a great estate, and could afford to lose a little
money. Now, thank God, I am heir to nothing,’ and he
looked round, blushing not a little, to the knot of gentlemen,
his gaming associates, who were lounging at the tables or
gathered round the fire.
‘ How do you mean, Mr. Warrington ? ’ cries my Lord
March. ‘ Have you lost Virginia, too ? Who has won it ?
I always had a fancy to play you myself for that stake.’
‘ And grow an improved breed of slaves in the colony,’
says another.
‘ The right owner has won it. You heard me tell of
my twin elder brother ? ’
‘ Wbo was killed in that affair of Braddock’s two years
ago ? Yes. Gracious goodness, my dear sir, I hope
in Heaven he has not come to life again ? ’
‘ He arrived in London two days since. He has been
a prisoner in a French fort for eighteen months ; he only
escaped a few months ago ; and left our house in Virginia
very soon after his release.’
‘ You haven’t had time to order mourning, I suppose,
Mi‘. Warrington ? ’ asks Mr. Selwyn very good-naturedly.
552
THE VIRGINIANS
and simple Harry hardly knew the meaning of his joke
until his brother interpreted it to him.
^Hang me, if I don’t believe the fellow is absolutely
glad of the reappearance of his confounded brother I ’
cries my Lord March, as they continued to talk of the
matter when the young Virginian had taken his leave.
‘ These savages practise the simple virtues of affection —
they are barely civilized in America yet,’ yawns Selwyn.
‘ They love their kindred, and they scalp their enemies,’
simpers Mr. Walpole. ‘It’s not Christian, but natural.
Shouldn’t you like to be present at a scalping-match,
George, and see a fellow skinned alive ? ’
‘ A man’s elder brother is his natural enemy,’ says Mr. Sel-
wyn, placidly ranging his money and counters before him.
‘ Torture is like broiled bones and pepper. You wouldn’t
relish simple hanging afterv’ards, George ! ’ continues Horry.
‘ I’m hanged if there’s any man in England who w'ould
like to see his elder brother alive,’ says my lord.
‘ No, nor his father either, my lord ! ’ cries Jack Morris.
‘ First time I ever knew you had one, Jack. Give me
counters for five hundred.’
* I say, ’tis aJl mighty fine about dead brothers coming
to life again,’ continues Jack. ‘Who is to know that
it wasn’t a scheme arranged between these two fellows ?
Here comes a young fellow who calls himseK the Fortunate
Youth, who says he is a Virginian prince and the deuce
knows what, and who gets into our society ’
A great laugh ensues at Jack’s phrase of ‘ our society
‘ Who is to know that it wasn’t a cross ? ’ Jack continues.
‘ The young one is to come first. He is to marry an heiress,
and, when he has got her, up is to rise the elder brother !
When did this elder brother show ? Why, when the
younger’s scheme was blowm, and all was up with him !
Who shall tell me that the fellow hasn’t been living in
Seven Dials, or in a cellar dining off tripe and cow-heel until
my younger gentleman w^as disposed of ? Dammy, as
gentlemen, I think we ought to take notice of it : and that
this Mr. Warrington has been taking a most outrageous
liberty with the whole club.’
‘ V^o put him up ? It w’as March, I think, put him
up ? ’ asks a bystander.
‘ Yes. But my lord thought he w^as putting up a very
different penson. Didn’t you, March *? ’
THE COURT END OF THE TOWN
55S
* Hold your confounded tongue, and mind your game ! ’
says the nobleman addressed : but Jack Morris’s opinion
found not a few supporters in the world. Many persons
agreed that it was most indecorous of Mr. Harry War-
rington to have ever believed in his brother’s death ; that
there was something suspicious about the young man’s
first appearance and subsequent actions, and, in fine, that
regarding these foreigners, adventurers, and the like, we
ought to be especially cautious.
Though he was out of prison and difficulty ; though he
had his aunt’s liberal donation of money in his pocket ;
though his dearest brother was restored to him, whose
return to life Harry never once thought of deploring, as
his friends at White’s supposed he would do ; though
Maria had shown herself in such a favourable light by her
behaviour during his misfortune : yet Harry, when alone,
felt himself not particularly cheerful, and smoked his
pipe of Virginia with a troubled mind. It was not that
he was deposed from his principality : the loss of it never
once vexed him ; he knew that his brother would share
with him as he would have done with his brother ; but
after all those struggles and doubts in his own mind, to
find himself poor and yet irrevocably bound to bis elderly
cousin ! Yes, she was elderly, there was no doubt about
it. When she came to that horrible den in Cursitor Street
and the tears w^ashed her rouge off, why, she looked as old
as his mother ! her face w^as all wrinkled and yellow, and
as he thought of her he felt just such a qualm as he had
when she was taken ill that day in the coach on their road
to Tunbridge. What would his mother say when he
brought her home, and. Lord, what battles there would be
between them ! He w^ould go and live on one of the plan-
tations — the farther from home the better — and have a few
negroes, and farm as best he might, and hunt a good deal ;
but at Castlew'ood or in her own home, such as he could
make it for her, what a life for poor Maria, who had been
used to go to Court and to cards and balls and assemblies
every night ! If he could be but the overseer of the estates
— Oh, he w^ould be an honest factor, and try and make up
for his useless life and extravagance in these past days !
Five thousand pounds, all his patrimony and the accumu-
lations of his long minority squandered in six months !
He a beggar, except for dear George’s kindness, with
T 3
554
THE VIRGINIANS
nothing in life left to him but an old wife, — a pretty beggar,
dressed out in velvet and silver lace forsooth — ^the poor
lad was arrayed in his best clothes — a pretty figure he had
made in Europe, and a nice end he was come to ! With
all his fine friends at White’s and Newmarket, with all
his extravagance, had he been happy a single day since
he had been in Europe V Yes, three days, four days,
yesterday evening, when he had been with dear, dear
Mrs. Lambert, and those affectionate, kind girls, and that
brave, good colonel. And the colonel was right when he
rebuked him for his spendthrift follies, and he had been
a brute to be angry as he had been, and God bless them
all for their generous exertions in his behalf ! Such were
the thoughts which Harry put into his pipe, and he smoked
them whilst he waited his brother’s return from Madame
Bernstein.
CHAPTER LIV
nnsnsro which hakby sits smoking his ote at home
HE maternal grandfather of our Vir-
ginians, the Colonel Esmond of wbom
frequent mention has been made, and
who had quitted England to reside in
the New World, had devoted some
portion of his long American leisure to
the composition of the memoirs of his
early life. In these volumes, Madame
de Bernstein (Mrs. Beatrice Esmond
was her name as a spinster) played a very
considerable part ; and as Gfeorge had
read his grandfather’s manuscript many
times over, he had learned to know his
kinswoman long before he saw her, — ^to
know,at least, the lady, young, beautiful,
and wilful, of half a century since, with
whom he now became acquainted in the decline of her
days. When cheeks are faded, and eyes are dim, is it sad
or pleasant, I wonder, for the woman who is a beauty no
more, to recall the period of her bloom ? When the heart
is withered, do the old love to remember how it once w’as
HARRY SMOKES HIS PIPE AT HOME
556
fresh and beat with warm emotions ? Wlien the spirits
are languid and weary, do we like to think how bright
they were in other days, the hope how buoyant, the sym-
pathies how ready, the enjoyment of life how keen and
eager ? So they fall, — the buds of prime, the roses of
beauty, the florid harvests of summer, — fall and wither,
and the naked branches shiver in the winter.
And that w'as a beauty once ! thinks George Warrington,
as his aunt, in her rouge and diamonds, comes in from her
rout, and that ruin w^as a splendid palace. Crowds of
lovers have sighed before those decrepit feet, and been
bewildered by the brightness of those eyes. He remem-
bered a firew’ork at home, at Williamsburg, on the king’s
birthday, and afterwards looking at the skeleton w^heel
and the sockets of the exploded Roman candles. The
dazzle and brilliancy of Aunt Beatrice’s early career passed
before him, as he thought over his grandsire’s Journals.
Honest Harry had seen them, too, but Harry was no
bookman, and had not read the manuscript very care-
fully : nay, if he had, he would probably not have reasoned
about it as his brother did, being by no means so much
inclined to moralizing as his melancholy senior.
Mr. Warrington thought that there was no cause why
he should tell his aunt how- intimate he w^as with her early
history, and accordingly held his peace upon that point.
When their meal w^as over, she pointed with her cane to her
escritoire, and bade her attendant bring the letter which
lay under the inkstand there ; and George, recognizing
the superscription, of course knew the letter to be that of
which he had been the bearer from home.
‘ It w’ould appear by this letter,’ said the old lady, looking
hard at her nephew, ‘that ever since your return, there
have been some diflterences betw^een you and my sister.’
‘ Indeed ? I did not know that Madam Esmond had
alluded to them,’ George said.
The baroness puts a great pair of glasses upon eyes wiiich
shot fire and kindled who knows how' many passions in
old days, and, after glancing over the letter, hands it to
George, who reads as follow's : —
Richmond, Virginia, December 26th, 1756.
Honoured Madam ! and Sister ! — I have received, and thank-
fully acknowledge, your ladyship’s favour, per Rose packet, of
556
THE VIRGIKIANS
October 23 u!t. ; and straightway answer you at a season which
should be one of goodwill and peace to all men : but in which Heaven
hath nevertheless decreed we should still bear our portion of
earthly sorrow and trouble. My reply will be brought to you by
my eldest son, Mr. Esmond Warrin^on, who returned to us so
miraculously out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death (as our
previous letters have informed my poor Henry), and who is desirous,
not without my consent to his wish, to visit Europe, though he has
been amongst us so short a while. I grieve to think that my dearest
Harry should have appeared at home — I mean in England — urider
false colours, as it were ; and should have been presented to his
Majesty, to our family, and his own, as his father’s heir, whilst
my dear son George was still alive, though dead to us. Ah, madam !
During the eighteen months of his captivity, what anguish have his
mother’s, his brother’s, hearts undergone ! My Harry’s is the
tenderest of any man’s now alive. In the joy of seeing Mr. Esmond
Warrington returned to life, he will forget the worldly misfortune
which befalls him. He will return to (comparative) poverty without
a pang. The most generous, the most chedieni of human beings,
of sons, he will gladly give up to his elder brother that inheritance
which had been his own but for the accident of birth, and for the
providential return of my son George.
Your beneficent intentions towaiSs dearest Harry will be more
than ever welcome, now he is reduced to a younger brother’s slender
portion 1 Many years since, an advantageous opportunity occurred
of providing for mm in this province, and he would by this time have
been master of a noble estate and negroes, and have been enabled
to make a figure with most here, could his mother^ s wishes have been
complied with, and his father’s small portion, now lying at small
interest in the British funds, have b^n invested in this most
excellent purchase. But the forms of the law, and, I grieve to own,
my elder son^s scruples, prevailed, and this admirable opportunity
was lost to me 1 Harry will find the savings of his income have been
carefully accumulated — long, long may he live to enjoy them !
May Heaven bless you, dear sister, for what your ladyship may
add to his liMe store I As I gather from your letter, that the sum
which has been allowed to him has not been sufficient for his expenses
in the fine company which he has kept (and the grandson of the
Marquis of Esmond — one who had so nearly been his lordship’s
hdr — may sure claim equality with any other nobleman in Great
Britain), and having a sum by me which I had always intended for
the poor child’s establishment, I entrust it to my eldest son, who,
to do him justice, hath a most sincere regard for his brother, to lay
it out for Harry’s best advantage.
‘ It took him out of prison, yesterday, madam. I think
that was the best use to which we could put it/ interposed
(Seoi^e, at this stage of his mother’s letter.
" Nay, sir, I don’t know any such thing ! Wliy not have
HABRY SMOKES HIS PIPE AT HOME 557
kept it to buy a pair of colours for him, or to help towards
another estate and some negroes, if he has a fancy for
home ? ’ cried the old lady. ‘ Besides, I had a fancy to
pay that debt myself.’
‘ I hope you ^vill let his brother do that. I ask leave
to be my brother’s banker in this matter, and consider
I have borrowed so much from my mother, to be paid back
to my dear Harry.’
‘ Do you say so, sir ? Give me a glass of wine ! You
are an extravagant fellow ! Bead on, and you will see
your mother tlunks so. I drink to your health, nephew
George! ’Tis good burgundy. Your grandfather never
loved burgundy. He loved claret, the little he drank.’
And George proceeded with the letter.
This remittance will, I trust, amply cover any expenses which,
owing to the mistake respecting his position, dearest Harry may
have incurred. I wish I could trust his elder brother’s prudence
as confidently as my Harry’s ! But I fear that, even in his cap-
tivity, Mr. Esmond W. has learned little of that humility which be-
comes all Ghristians,and which I have ever endeavoured to teach to
my children. Should you by chance show him these Knes, when,
by the blessing of Heaven on those who go down to the sea in ships,
the Great Ocean divides us I he will know that a fond mother’s
blessing and prayers follow both her children, and that there is no
act I have ever done, no desire I have ever expressed (however
little he may have been inclined to obey it !) but hath been dictated
by the fondest wishes for my dearest boys’ welfare.
‘ There is a scratch with a penknife, and a great blot
upon the letter there, as if water had fallen on it. Your
mother writes well, (Seorge. I suppose you and she had
a difference ? ’ said George’s aunt, not u^indly.
‘ Yes, ma’am, many,’ answered the young man, sadly.
‘ The last was about a question of money — of ransom which
I promised to the old lieutenant of the fort w^ho aided me
to make my escape. I told you he had a mistress, a poor
Indian woman, w^ho helped me, and was kind to me. Six
weeks after my arrival at home, the poor thing made her
appearance at Richmond, having found her way through
the woods by pretty much the same track which I had
followed, and bringing me the token which Museau had
promised to send me when he connived to my flight.
A commanding officer and a considerable reinforcement
had arrived at Duquesne. Charges, I don’t know of
558
THE YIRGINIAKS
what peculation (for his messenger could not express herself
very clearly), had been brought against this Museau. He
had been put under arrest, and had tried to escape ; but,
less fortunate than myself, he had been shot on the rampart,
and he sent the Indian woman to me, with my grandfather’s
watch, and a line scrawled in his prison on his death-
bed, begging me to send ce que je sgavais to a notary
at Havre de Grace in France to be transmitted to his
relatives at Caen in Normandy. My friend Silverheels,
the hunter, had helped my poor Indian on her way. I don’t
know how she would have escaped scalping else. But at
home they received the poor thing sternly. They hardly
gave her a welcome. I won’t say what suspicions they
had regarding her and me. The poor wTetch fell to drinking
whenever she could find means. I ordered that she should
have food and shelter, and she became the jest of our
negroes, and formed the subject of the scandal and tittle-
tattle of the old fools in our little town. Our governor was,
luckily, a man of sense, and I made interest with him, and
procured a pass to send her back to her people. Her very
grief at parting with me only served to confirm the suspicions
against her. A fellow pimched against me from the pulpit,
I believe ; I had to treat another with a cane. And I
had a violent dispute with Madam Esmond — a difference
which is not healed yet — ^beeause I insisted upon paying
to the heirs Museau pointed out the money I had promised
for my deliverance. You see that scandal flourishes at the
borders of the wilderness, and in the New World as well
as the Old.’
* I have suffered from it myself, my dear ! ’ said Madame
Bernstein demurely, ‘ Fill thy glass, child ! A little
tass of cherry-brandy ! ’TwiU do thee all the good in
the world.’
As for my poor Harry’s marriage (Madam Esmond’s letter went on)
though I know too u!dl, from sad experience, the dangers to which
youth is subject, and would keep my boy, at any price, from them,
though I should wish him to marry a person of rank, as becomes
his birth, yet my Lady Maria Esmond is out of the question. Her
age is almost the same as mine ; and I know my brother Castlewood
left Ms daughters with the very smallest portions. My Harry is
so obedient that I know a desire from me will be sufficient to cause
Mm to give up this imprudent match. Some foolish people once
supposed that I myself once thought of a second union, and with
HARRY SMOKES HIS PIPE AT HOME 559
a person of rank very different from ours. No ! I knew what was
due to my children. As succeeding to this estate after me, Mr.
Esmond W. is amply provided for. Let my task now be to save
for his less fortunate younger brother: and, as I do not love to
live quite alone, let him return without delay to his fond and loving
mother.
The report which your ladyship hath given of my Harry fills my
heart with warmest gratitude. He is all indeed a mother may wish.
A year in Europe will have given him a polish and refinement which
he could not acquire in our homely Virginia. Mr. Stack, one of
our invaluable ministers in Richmond, hath a letter from Mr. Ward —
my darlings’ tutor of early days — who knows my Lady Warrington
and her excellent family, and saith that my Harry has lived much
with his cousins of late. I am grateful to think that my boy has
the privilege of being with his good aunt. May he follow her counsels,
and listen to those around mm who will guide him on the way of
Ms best wdfare ! Adieu, dear madam and sister ! For your kindness
to my boy accept the grateful thanks of a mother’s heart. Though
we have been divided hitherto, may these kindly ties draw us nearer
and nearer. I am thankful that you should speak of my dearest
father so. He was, indeed, one of the best of men 1 He, too, thanks
you, I know, for the love you have borne to one of his children ;
and his daughter subscribes herself,
With sincere thanks,
Your ladyship’s
Most dutiful and grateful sister and servant,
Rachel Esmond Wn.
PS. — I have communicated with my Lady Maria ; but there will
be no need to tell her and dear Harry that his mother or your lady-
ship hope to he able to increase his small fortune. The match is
altogether xmsuitable.
‘ As far as regards myself, madam,’ (Jeorge said, laying
down the paper, ‘ my mother’s letter conveys no news
to me. I always knew that Harry was the favourite
son with Madam Esmond, as he deserves indeed to be. He
has a hundred good qualities which I have not the good
fortune to possess. He has better looks ’
‘Nay, that is not your fault,’ said the old lady, slily
looking at him ; ‘ and, but that he is fair and you are
brown, one might almost pass for the other.’
Mr. George bowed, and a faint blush tinged his pale
cheek.
‘His disposition is bright, and mine is dark,’ he con-
tinued ; ‘ Harry is cheerful, and I am otherwise, perhaps.
He knows how to make himself beloved by every one, and
it has been my lot to find but few friends,’
360
THE VIBOmiANS
‘ My sister and you have pretty little quarrels. There
were such in old days in our family,’ the baroness said ;
‘ and if Madam Esmond takes after our mother ’
‘My mother has always described hers as an angel
upon earth,’ interposed George.
‘ Eh ! That is a common character for people "when
they are dead ! ’ cried the baroness ; ‘ and Eachel Castle-
wo^ was an angel, if you like — ^at least your grandfather
thought so. But let me tell you, sir, that angels are
sometimes not very commodes d vivre. It may be they are
too good to live with us sinners, and the air down below
here don’t agree with them. My poor mother was so
perfect that she never could forgive me for being otherwise.
Ah, mon Dieu ! how she used to oppress me with those
angelical airs ! ’
George cast down his ejes, and thought of his own
melancholy youth. He did not care to submit more of his
family secrets to the cynical inquisition of this old world-
ling, who seemed, however, to understand him in spite
of his reticence.
‘ I quite comprehend you, sir, though you hold your
tongue,’ the baroness <K)ntinued. ‘ A sermon in the
morning : a sermon at night : and two or three of a
Sunday. That is w’hat people call being good. Every
pleasure cried fie upon ; all us worldly people excom-
municated ; a ball an abomination of desolation ; a play
a forbidden pastime ; and a game of cards perdition !
What a life ! Mon Dieu, w^hat a life ! ’
‘ We played at cards every night, if we were so inclined,’
said George, smiling ; ‘ and my grandfather loved Shake-
speare so much, that my mother had not a word to say
against her father’s favourite author.’
‘I remember. He could say whole pages by heart;
though, for my part, I like Mr, Congreve a great deal
better. And then, there was that dreadful, dreary Milton,
whom he and Mr, Addison pretended to admire ! ’ cried
the old lady, tapping her fan.
‘ If your ladyship does not like Shakespeare, you will not
quarrel with my mother for being indifferent to him, too,’
said George. ‘ And indeed I think, and I am sure, that
you don’t do her justice. Wherever there are any poor
she relieves them ; wherever there are any sick she ’
‘ She doses them with her horrible purges and boluses I *
HARRY SMOKES HIS PIPE AT HOME 561
cried the baroness. ‘ Of course, just as iny mother
did!’
* She does her best to cure them ! She acts for the
best, and performs her duty as far as she knows it.’
‘ I don’t blame you, sir, for doing yours, and keeping
your own counsel about Madam Esmond,’ said the old
lady. ‘But at least there is one point upon w’hich we
all three agree — that this absurd marriage must be pre-
vented. Do you know how old the woman is ? I can
tell you, though she has torn the first leaf out of the family
Bible at Castlewood.’
‘My mother has not forgotten her cousin’s age, and is
shocked at the disparity between her and my poor brother.
Indeed, a city-bred lady of her time of life, accustomed
to London gaiety and luxury, would find but a dismal
home in our Virginian plantation. Besides, the house,
such as it is, is not Harry’s. He is welcome there. Heaven
knows ; more welcome, perhaps, than I, to whom the
property comes in natural reversion ; but, as I told him,
I doubt how his wife w^ould — would like our colony,’
George said, with a blush, and a hesitation in his sentence.
The old lady laughed shrilly. ‘ He, he ! Nephew
Warrington 1 ’ she said, ‘ you need not scruple to speak
your mind out. I shall tell no tales to your mother : ■
though ’tis no news to me that she has a high temper, and
loves her own way. Harry has held his tongue, too ; but
it needed no conjurer to see who was the mistress at home,
and what sort of a life my sister led you. I love my niece,
my Lady Molly, so well, that I could wish her two or three
years of Virginia, with your mother reigning over her.
You may well look alarmed, sir ! Harry has said quite
enough to show me who governs the family.’
‘ Madam,’ said George, smiling, ‘ I may say as much as
this, that I don’t envy any woman coming into our house
against my mother’s w^ill : and my poor brother knows
this perfectly well.’
‘ What ? You two have talked the matter over ? No
doubt you have. And the foolish child considers himseK
bound in honour — of course he does, the gaby ! ’
‘ He says Lady Maria has behaved most nobly to him.
When he was sent to prison, she brought him her trinkets
and jewels, and every guinea she had in the world. This
behaviour has touched him so, that he feels more deeply
562
THE VIRGINIANS
than ever bound to her ladyship. But I own my brother
seems bound by honour rather than love — such at least
is his present feeling.’
* My good creature,’ cried Madame Bernstein, " don’t you
see that Maria brings a few twopenny trinkets and a half-
dozen guineas to Mr. Esmond, the heir of the great estate
in Virginia, — not to the second son, who is a beggar, and
has just squandered away every shilling of his fortune ?
I swear to you, on my credit as a gentlewoman, that,
knowing Harry’s obstinacy, and the misery he had
in store for himself, I tried to bribe Maria to give
up her engagement with him, and only failed because
I could not bribe high enough ! When he was in prison,
I sent my lawyer to him, with orders to pay his debts
immediately if he would but part from her, but Maria
had been beforehand with us, and Mr. Harry chose not
to go back from his stupid word. Let me tell you what
has passed in the last month ! ’ And here the old lady
narrated at length the history which we know already,
but in that cynical l^aguage which was common in her
times, when the jSnest folks and the most delicate ladies
called things and people by names which w^e never utter
in good company nowadays. And so much the better
on the whole. We mayn’t be more virtuous, but it is
something to be more decent : perhaps we are not more
pure, but of a surety we are more cleanly.
Madame Bernstein talked so much, so long, and so
cleverly, tliat she was quite pleased vith herself and her
listener ; and when she put herself into the hands of Mrs.
Brett to retire for the night, informed the waiting-maid
that she had changed her opinion about her eldest nephew,
and that Mr. George was handsome, that he was certainly
much wittier than poor Harry (whom Heaven, it must be
confessed, had not furnished with a very great supply of
brains), and that he had quite the bel air — a something
melancholy — a noble and distinguished je ne sgais quay —
which reminded her of the colonel. Had she ever told
Brett about the colonel ? Scores of times, no doubt.
And now she told Brett about the colonel once more.
M^nwhile, perhaps her new favourite was not quite so
well pleased with her as she was with him. What a strange
picture of life and manners had the old lady unveiled to
her nephew I How she railed at all the world round
HARRY SMOKES HIS PIPE AT HOME
563
about her ! How unconsciously did she paint her own
family — her own self ; how selfish, one and all ; pursuing
what mean ends ; grasping and scrambling frantically
for what petty prizes ; ambitious for what shabby recom-
penses ; trampling — ^from life’s beginning to its close —
through what scenes of stale dissipations and faded
pleasures ! ‘ Are these the inheritors of noble blood ? ’
thought George, as he %vent home quite late from his
aunt’s house, passing by doors whence the last guests of
fashion were issuing, and where the chairmen were yawming
over their expiring torches. ‘ Are these the proud pos-
sessors of ancestral honours and ancient names, and were
their forefathers, w’hen in life, no better ? We have our
pedigree at home with noble eoats-of-arms emblazoned
all over the branches, and titles dating back before the
Conquest and the Crusaders. When a knight of old
found a friend in w^ant, did he turn his back upon him, or
an unprotected damsel, did he delude her and leave her ?
When a nobleman of the early time received a young
kinsman, did he get the better of him at dice, and did
the ancient chivalry cheat in horseflesh ? Can it be that
this w’ily w^oman of the world, as my aunt has represented,
has inveigled my poor Harry into an engagement, that
her tears are false, and that as soon as she finds him poor
she will desert him ? Had we not best pack the trunks and
take a cabin in the next ship bound for home ? ’ George
reached his own door revolving these thoughts, and Gumbo
came up yawning with a candle, and Harry was asleep
before the extinguished fire, with the ashes of his emptied
pipe on the table beside him.
He starts up, his eyes, for a moment duUed by sleep,
lighten with pleasure as he sees his dear George. He puts
his arms round his brother with a boyish laugh.
‘ There he is in flesh and blood, thank God ! ’ he says.
‘ I w*as dreaming of thee but now, George, and that Ward
w^as hearing us our lesson 1 Dost thou remember the
ruler, Georgy ? Wliy, bless my soul, ’tis three o’clock I
Where have you been a-gadding, Mr. George ? Hast thou
supped ? I supped at Wliite’s, but I’m hungry again.
I did not play, sir, — no, no ; no more of that for younger
brothers ! And my Lord March paid me fifty he lost to me.
I bet against his horse and on the Duke of Hamilton’s !
They both rode the match at New^market this morning,
564
THE VIR0INIA2?S
and he lost because he was under weight. And he paid
me, and he was as sulky as a bear. Let us have one pipe,
Georgy ! — just one.’
And after the smoke the young men went to bed, w'here
I, for one, wish them a pleasant rest, for sure it is a good
and pleasant thing to see brethren who love one another.
CHAPTER LV
BETWEEN BEOTHEES
F course our young
men had had their
private talk about
home, and all the
people and doings there,
and each had imparted
to the other full par-
ticulars of his history
since their last meet-
ing. How were Harry’s
dogs, and little Demp-
ster, and good old
Nathan, and the rest
of the household ? Was
Mountain well, and
Fanny grown to be
a pretty girl ? So Parson Broadbent’s daughter was
engaged to marry Tom Barker of Savannah, and they
were to go and live in Georgia \ Harry owns that at one
period he was very sweet upon Parson Broadbent’s daughter,
and lost a great deal of pocket-money at cards, and drank
a great quantity of strong winters with the father, in order
to have a pretext for being near the girl. But, Heaven
help us ! Madam Esmond would never have consented
to his throwing himself away upon Polly Broadbent. So
Colonel G. Washington’s 'wife was a pretty woman, very
good-natured and pleasant, and with a good fortune ?
He had. brought her into Richmond, and paid a visit of
state to Madam Esmond. George described, -with much
humour, the awful ceremonials at the interview between
ESMOISD
BETWEEN BEOTHERS
567
these two personages, and the killing politeness of his
mother to Mr. Washington’s young wife. ‘Never mind,
George, my dear ! ’ says Mrs. Mountain. ‘ The colonel
has taken another wife, but I feel certain that at one time
two young gentlemen I know’ of ran a veiy near chance
of having a tall stepfather six feet t'wo in his boots.’ To
be sure, Mountain was for ever matchmaking in her mind.
Two people could not play a game at cards together, or sit
down to a dish of tea, but she fancied their conjunction
w^as for life. It was she — ^the foolish tattler — w^ho had set
the report abroad regarding the poor Indian w’oman.
As for Madam Esmond, she had repelled the insinuation with
scorn when Parson Stack brought it to her, and said,
‘ I should as soon fancy Mr. Esmond stealing the spoons,
or marrying a negro woman out of the kitchen.’ But
though she disdained to find the poor Biche guilty, and
even thanked her for attending her son in his illness, she
treated her with such a chilling haughtiness of demeanour,
that the Indian slunk away into the servants’ quarters,
and there tried to drown her disappointments with drink.
It w^as not a cheerful picture that which George gave of his
two months at home. ‘The birthright is mine, Harry,’
he said, ‘ but thou art the favourite, and God help me !
I think my mother almost grudges it to me. Why should
I have taken the and preceded your worship into the
w’orld ? Had you been the elder, you would have had
the best cellar, and ridden the best nag, and been the most
popular man in the country, w’hereas I have not a word
to say for myself, and frighten people by my glum face :
I should have been second son, and set up as lawyer, or
come to England and got my degrees, and turned parson,
and said grace at your honour’s table. The time is out
of joint, sir. 0 cursed spite, that ever I w’as born to set it
right ! ’
‘ Why, Georgy, you are talking verses, I protest you are ! ’
says Harry.
‘I think, my dear, some one else talked those verses
before me,’ says George, with a smile.
‘ It’s out of one of your books. You know every book
that ever was wTote, that I do believe ! ’ cries Harry ;
and then told his brother how he had seen the two authors
at Tunbridge, and how he had taken ofi his hat to them.
‘ Not that I cared much about their books, not being clever
568
THE VIRGINIANS
enough. But I remembered how my dear old George used
to speak of ’em,’ says Harry, with a choke in his voice,
‘ and that’s why I liked to see them. I say, dear, it’s
like a dream seeing you over again. Think of that bloody
Indian with his knife at my George’s head ! I should like
to give that Monsieur de Florae something for saving
you — but I haven’t got much now, only my little gold
knee-buckles, and they ain’t worth two guineas.’
‘ You have got the half of what I have, child, and we’ll
divide as soon as I have paid the Frenchman,’ George said.
On which Harry broke out not merely into blessings but
actual imprecations, indicating his intense love and satis-
faction ; and he swore that there never was such a brother
in the world as his brother George. Indeed, for some days
after his brother’s arrival his eyes followed George about :
he would lay down his knife and fork, or his newspaper,
when they were sitting together, and begin to laugh to
himself. When he w^alked with George on the Mall or in
Hyde Park, he wnuld gaze round at the company, as much
as to say, ‘ Look here, gentlemen ! This is he. This is
my brother, that was d^d and is alive again ! Can any
man in Christendom produce such a brother as this ? ’
Of course he was of opinion that George should pay
to Museau’s heirs the sum which he had promised for his
ransom. This question had been the cause of no small
unhappiness to poor George at home. Museau dead,
Madam Esmond argued wdth much eagerness and not a little
rancour, the bargain fell to the ground, and her son was
free. The man was a rogue in the first instance. She,
would not pay the wages of iniquity. Mr. Esmond had
a small independence from his father, and might squander
his patrimony if he chose. He was of age, and the money
was in his power ; but she would be no party to such
extravagance, as giving twelve thousand livres to a parcel
of peasants in Normandy with w’hom we were at war,
and who would very likely give it all to the priests and
the Pope. She would not subscribe to any such wickedness.
If George w^anted to squander aw^ay his father’s money
(she must say that formerly he had not been so eager, and
when Harry^s hemfii w^as in question had refused to touch
a penny of it !) — if he wished to spend it now, why not
give it to his own flesh and blood, to poor Harry, who was
suddenly deprived of his inheritance, and not to a set
BETWEEN BROTHERS
569
of priest-ridden peasants in France ? This dispute had
raged between mother and son during the whole of the
latter’s last days in Virginia. It had never been settled.
On the morning of George’s departure, Madam Esmond
had come to his bedside, after a sleepless night, and asked
him whether he still persisted in his intention to fling aw’ay
his father’s property ? He replied in a depth of grief and
perplexity, that his w’ord was passed, and he must do
as his honour bade him. She answered that she would
continue to pray that Heaven might soften his proud heart,
and enable her to bear her heavy trials : and the last
view George had of his mother’s face w^as as she stood yet
a moment by his bedside, pale and with tearless eyes,
before she turned away and slowly left his chamber.
‘ Where didst thou learn the art of winning over every-
body to thy side, Harry i ’ continued George ; ‘ and how'
is it that you, and all the w’orld begin by being friends ?
Teach me a few lessons in popularity, — nay, I don’t
know that I will have them ; and when I find and hear
certain people hate me, I think I am rather pleased than
angry. At first, at Richmond, Mr. Esmond Warrington,
the only prisoner who had escaped from Braddock’s field —
the victim of so much illness and hardship — w*as a favourite
with the town-folks, and received privately and publicly
with no little kindness. The parson glorified my escape
in a sermon ; the neighbours came to visit the fugitive ;
the family coach w’as ordered out, and Madam Esmond
and I paid our visits in return. I think some pretty little
caps were set at me. But these our mother routed off,
and frightened with the prodigious haughtiness of her
demeanour ; and my popularity was already at the
decrease, before the event occurred which put the last
fimshing stroke to it. I was not jolly enough for the
officers, and didn’t care for their drinking bouts, dice-
boxes, and swearing. I w^as too sarcastic for the ladies,
and their tea and tattle stupefied me almost as much as
the men’s blustering and horse-talk. I cannot tell thee,
Harry, how lonely I felt in that place, amidst the
scandal and squabbles : I regretted my prison almost, and
found myseff more than once wishing for the freedom of
thought, and the silent ease of Duquesne. I am very shy,
I suppose : I can speak unreservedly to very few people.
Before most, I sit utterly silent. When we two w^ere at
570
THE VIRGIKLmS
home, it was thou who used to talk at table and get a
smile now and then from our mother. When she and
I w’ere together w’e had no subject in common, and we
scarce spoke at all until we began to dispute about law
and divinity,
‘ So the gentlemen had determined I was supercilious,
and a dull companion (and, indeed, I think their opinion
was right), and the ladies thought I was cold and sarcastic, —
could never make out whether I was in earnest or no, and,
I think, generally voted I was a disagreeable fellow, before
my character was gone quite away ; and that went with
the appearance of the poor Biche. Oh, a nice character
they made for me, my dear ! ’ cried George, in a transport
of wrath, ‘ and a pretty life they led me, after Museau’s
unlucky messenger had appeared amongst us ! The boys
hooted the poor woman 3 she appeared in the street;
the ladies topped me half-curtsies, and walked over
to the other side. That precious clergyman went from
one tea-table to another preaching on the horrors of
seduction, and the lax principles winch young men learned
in Popish countries and brought back thence. The poor
Fawn’s appearance at home, a few weeks after my return
home, w^as declared to be a scheme between her and me ;
and the best informed agreed that she had waited on the
other side of the river until I gave her the signal to come
and join me in Richmond. The officers bantered me
at the coffee-house, and cracked their clumsy jokes about
the woman I had selected. Oh, the world is a nice charit-
aWe world ! I was so enraged that I thought of going
to Castlewood and living alone there, — ^for our mother
finds the place dull, and the greatest consolation in precious
Mr, Stack’s ministry, — ^when the news arrived of yowr female
perplexity, and I think we were all glad that I should
have a pretext for coming to Europe.’
‘ I should like to see any of the infernal scoundrels
who said a word against you, and break their rascally
bones,’ roars out Harry, striding up and down the room.
‘ I had to do something like it for Bob Clubber.’
‘ What ! that little sneaking, backbiting, toad-eating
wretch, who is always hanging about my lord at Greenway
Court, and spunging on every gentleman in the country i
If you whipped him, I hope you whipped him well, George ? ’
‘ We were bound over to keep the peace ; and I offered
BETWEEN BEOTHEKS
571
to go into Maryland with him and settle our difference
there, and of course the good folk said, that having made
free with the seventh commandment I was inclined to
break the sixth. So, by this and by that — and being as
innocent of the crime imputed to me as you are — I left
home, my dear Harry, with as awlul a reputation as ever
a young gentleman earned.’
Ah, what an opportunity is there here to moralize ! If
the esteemed reader and his humble servant could but
know — could but virite down in a book — could but publish,
with illustrations, a coUection of the lies w'hich have been
told regarding each of us since w'e came to man’s estate, —
what a harrowing and thrilling work of fiction that romance
would be ! Not only is the world informed of everything
about you, but of a great deal more. Not long since, the
kind postman brought a paper containing a valuable piece
of criticism, which stated, ‘ This author states he was
born in such-and-such a year. It is a lie. He was born
in the year so-and-so.’ The critic knew better : of course
he did. Another (and both came from the country which
gave Mulligan birth) warned some friend, saying, ‘ Don’t
speak of New South Wales to him. He has a brother
there, and the family never mention his mvmeJ But this
subject is too vast and noble for a mere paragraph. I shall
prepare a memoir, or let us rather have, par une societi
de gens de lettres, a series of Biographies, — of lives of
gentlemen, as told by their dear friends whom they
don’t know.
George having related his exploits as champion and
martyr, of course Harry had to unbosom himself to his
brother, and lay before his elder an account of his private
affairs. He gave up all the family of Castlewood — my
lord, not for getting the better of him at play ; for Harry
was a sporting man, and expected to pay when he lost,
and receive when he won ; but for refusing to add the
chaplain in his necessity, and dismissing him with such
false and heartless pretexts. About Mr. Will he had made
up his mind, after the horse-dealing matter, and freely
marked his sense of the latter’s conduct upon Mr. Will’s
eyes and nose. Respecting the countess and Lady Fanny,
Harry spoke in a manner more guarded, but not very
favourable. He had heard all sorts of stories about them.
The countess was a card-playing old cat ; Lady Fanny
572
THE VIBGmiAXS
was a de-sperate flirt. Who told him ? Well, he had
heard the stories from a person who knew them both very
well indeed. In fact, in their daj^s of confidence \ Maria
had freely imparted to her cousin a number of anecdotes
respecting her stepmother and her half-sister, vliich were
by no means in favour of those ladies.
But in respect to Lady Maria herself, the young man
was stanch and hearty. ‘ It may be imprudent : I don’t
say no, George. I may be a fool : I think I am. I know
there v ill be a dreadful piece of work at home, and that
madam and she will fight. Well ! We must live apart.
Our estate is big enough to live on without quarrelling,
and I can go elsewhere than to Richmond or Castlewood.
When you come to the jnroperty, you’ll give me a bit — at
any rate, madam wiU let me off at an easy rent — or I’ll
make a famous farmer or factor. I can’t and won’t part
from Maria. She has acted so nobly by me, that I should
be a rascal to turn my back on her. Think of her bringing
me every jewel she had in the w’orld, dear brave creature !
and flinging them into my lap with her last guineas, — ^and —
and — God bless her ! ’ Here Hariy dashed his sleeve
across his eyes, mth a stamp of his foot ; and said, ‘ No,
brother, I won’t part with her, not to be made governor
of Virginia to-morrow ; and my dearest old George would
never advise me to do so, I know that.’
‘ I am sent here to advise you,’ George replied. ‘ I am
sent to break the marriage off, if I can : and a more un-
happy one I can’t imagine. But I can’t counsel you to
hteik your word, my boy,’
* I faiew you couldn’t ! What’s said is said, George.
I have made my bed, and must lie on it,’ says Mr. Harry,
gloomily.
Such had been the settlement between our t^vo young
worthies, when they first talked over Mr. Harry’s love
affair. But after George’s conversation with Ms aunt,
and the further knowiedge of Ms family, wMch he acquired
through the information of that keen old woman of the
world, Mr. Warrington, who w^as naturally of a sceptical
turn, began to doubt about Lady Maria, as w’ell as regarding
her brothers and sister, and looked at Harry’s engagement
with increased distrust and alarm. Was it for his w’ealth
that Maria w’anted Harry ? Was it Ms handsome young
person that she longed after ? Were those stories true
BETWEEN BROTHERS
573
which Aunt Bernstein had told of her ? Certainly he could
not advise Harry to break his word ; but he might east
about in his mind for some scheme for putting Maria’s
affection to the trial ; and his ensuing conduct, w^liich
appeared not very amiable, I suppose resulted from this
deliberation.
CHAPTER LVI
AEIADNE
y Lord Castlewood had
a house in Kensing-
ton Square spacious
enough to accommo-
date the several
members of his noble
family, and conve-
nient for their ser-
vice at the palace
hard by, when his
Majesty dw^elt there.
Her ladyship had her
evenings, and gave
her card-parties here
for such as would
come ; but Kensing-
ton was a long way
from London a hun-
dred years since, and
George Selwyn said
he for one was afraid to go, for fear of being robbed of
a night, — ^whether by footpads with crape over their faces,
or by ladies in rouge at the quadrille-table, we have no
means of saying. About noon on the day after Harry
had made his reappearance at White’s, it chanced that
all his virtuous kinsfolks partook of breakfast together,
even Mr. Will being present, who was to go into waiting in
the afternoon.
The ladies came first to their chocolate : them Mr.
Will joined in his Court suit ; finally, my lord appeared.
574
THE VIRGINIANS
languid, in his bedgown and night-cap, having not yet
assumed his wig for the day. Here was news which Will
had brought home from the " Star and Garter ’ last night,
when he supped in company with some men who had
heard it at White’s, and seen it at Ranelagh !
‘ Heard what ? seen W’hat ? ’ asked the head of the house,
taking up his Daily Advertiser.
‘ Ask Maria ! ’ says Lady Fanny. My lord turns to his
elder sister, w’ho wears a face of portentous sadness, and
looks as pale as a tablecloth.
‘ ’Tis one of Will’s usual elegant and polite inventions,’
says Maria.
" No,’ sw^ore Will, with several of his oaths ; ^ it was
no invention of his. Tom Qaypool of Norfolk saw ’em
both at Ranels^h ; and Jack Morris came out of White’s,
where he heard the story from Harry Warrington’s own
lips. Curse him, I’m glad of it ! ’ roars Will, slapping
the table. ‘ What do you think of your Fortunate Youth ?
your Virginian, whom your lordship made so much of,
turning out to be a second son ? ’
‘ The elder brother not dead ? ’ says my lord.
‘ No more dead than you are. Never was. It’s my
belief liiat it was a cross between the two.’
‘ Mr. Warrington is incapible of such duplicity ! ’ cries
Maria.
‘ 1 never encouraged the fellow, I am sure you will do
me justice there,’ says my lady. ‘ Nor did Fanny : not
we, indeed ! ’
‘ Not we, indeed ! ’ echo^ my Lady Fanny.
‘ The fellow is only a beggar, and, I dare say, has not
paid for the clothes on his back,’ continues Will. ‘ I’m
^ad of it, for, hang him, I hate him ! ’
‘ You don’t regard him with favourable eyes ; especially
since he blacked yours, Will ! ’ grins my lord. ‘ So the poor
fellow has found his brother, and lost his estate ! ’ And
here he turned towards his sister Maria, who, although
rile looked the picture of woe, must have suggested some-
thing ludicrous to the humourist near whom she sat ; for
Ms lordsMp, having gazed at her for a minute, burst into
a shriM laugh, wMch caused the poor lady’s face to flush,
and pr^ntly her eyes to pour over with tears. * It’s
a shame ! it’s a shame ! ’ she sobbed out, and hid her
face in her handkerchief. Maria’s step-brother and sister
ARIADNE
575
looked at each other. ‘ We never quite understand
your lordship’s humour,’ the former lady remarked,
gravely.
‘ I don’t see there is the least reason why you should,’
said my lord, coolly. " Maria, my dear, pray excuse me if
I have said — that is, done anything, to hurt your feelings.’
' Done anything ! You pillaged the poor lad in his
prosperity, and laugh at him in his ruin ! ’ says Maria,
rising from table, and glaring round at all her family.
‘ Excuse me, my dear sister, I was not laughing at Am,’
said my lord, gently.
‘ Oh, never mind at what or whom else, my lord ! You
have taken from him all he had to lose. All the world
points at you as the man who feeds on his own flesh and
blood. And now you have his all you make merry over
his misfortune ! ’ and away she rustled from the room,
flinging looks of defiance at all the party there assembled.
‘ TeU us what has happened, or what you have heard,
Will, and my sister’s grief will not interrupt us.’ And
Will told, at greater length, and with immense exultation
at Harry’s discomfiture, the story now buzzed through
all London, of George Warrington’s sudden apparition.
Lord Castlewood was sorry for Harry : Harry was a good
brave lad, and his kinsman liked him, as much as certain
worldly folks like each other. To be sure, he played
Harry at cards, and took the advantage of the market
upon him ; but why not ? The peach which other men
would certainly pluck, he might as well devour. ^ Eh ! if
that were all my conscience had to reproach me with,
I need not be very uneasy ! ’ my lord thought, ‘ Where
does Mr. Warrington live ? ’
Will expressed himself ready to enter upon a state of
reprobation if he knew or cared.
" He shall be invited here, and treated with every respect,’
says my lord.
‘ Including piquet, I suppose ! ’ growls Will.
‘ Or will you take him to the stables, and sell him one
of your bargains of horse-flesh, Will ? ’ asks Lord Castle-
wood. " You would have won of Harry Warrington fast
enough, if you could ; but you cheat so clumsily at your
game that you got paid with a cudgel. I desire, once
more, that every attention may be paid to our cousin
Warrington.’
576
THE VIRGINIANS
^ Aiid that you are not to be disturbed, when you sit
down to play, of course, my lord ! ’ cries Lady Castle-
wood,
‘ Madam, I desire fair play, for Mr. Warrington, and for
myself, and for every member of this amiable family,’
retorted Lord Castlewood, fiercely.
^ Heaven help the poor gentleman if your lordship is
going to be kind to him,* said the Stepmother, with a curtsy ;
and there is no knowing how^ far this family dispute might
have been carried, had not, at this moment, a phaeton
driven up to the house, in which w^ere seated the two
young Virginians.
It was the carriage which our young Prodigal had pur-
chased in the days of his prosperity. He drove it still :
George sat in it by his side; their negroes were behind
them. Harry had been for meekly giving the whip and reins
to his brother, and ceding the whole property to him.
‘ What business has a poor devil like me with horses and
carriages, Georgy ? ’ Harry had humbly said. ‘ Beyond
the coat on my back, and the purse my aunt gave me,
I have nothing in the world. You take the driving-seat,
brother ; it will ease my mind if you will take the dnving-
seat.’ George laughingly said he did not know the way,
and Harry did; and that, as for the carriage, he would
claim only a half it, as he had already done with his
brother’s wardrobe. ^ But a bargain is a bargain ; if I
share thy coats thou must divide my breeches’ pocket,
Harry ; that is but fair dealing ! ’ Again and again
Harry swore there never was such a brother on earth.
How he rattled Ms horses over the road ! How pleased
and proud he was to drive such a brother ! They came
to Kensington in famous Mgh spirits; and Gumbo’s
thunder upon Lord Castlewood’s door was w^orthy of the
biggest footman in all St. James’s.
Only my Lady Castlewood and her daughter Lady Fanny
were in the room into wMch our young gentlemen were
ushered. Will had no particular fancy to face Harry, my
lord was not dressed, Maria had her reasons for being
away, at least till her eyes were dried. When we drive up
to friends’ houses nowadays in our coaches-and-six, when
John carries up our noble names, when, finally, we enter
the drawing-room with our best hat and best Sunday smile
foremc^t, does it ever happen that w^e interrupt a family
ARIADNE
577
row ? that we come simpering and smiling in, and stepping
over the delusive ashes of a still burning domestic heat ?
that in the interval between the hall-door and the drawing-
room, Mrs., Mr., and the Misses Jones have grouped them-
selves in a family tableau ; this girl artlessly arranging
flowers in a vase, let us say ; that one reclining over an
illuminated work of devotion ; mamma on the sofa, with
the butcher’s and grocer’s book pushed under the cushion,
some elegant work in her hand, and a pretty little foot
pushed out advantageously ; while honest Jones, far from
saying, ‘ Curse that Brown, he is always calling here I ’
holds out a kindly hand, shows a pleased face, and exclaims,
‘ What, Brown, my boy, delighted to see you ! Hope you’ve
come to lunch 1 ’ I say, does it ever happen to us to be
made the victims of domestic artifices, the spectators of
domestic comedies got up for our special amusement ?
Oh, let us be thankful, not only for faces, but for masks !
not only for honest welcome, but for hypocrisy, which
hides unwelcome things from us I Whilst I am talking,
for instance, in this easy chatty way, what right have you,
my good sir, to know what is really passing in my mind ?
It may be that I am racked with gout, or that my eldest
son has just sent me in a thousand pounds’ worth of collie
bills, or that I am writhing under an attack of the Stoke
Pogis Sentinely which has jxist been sent me under cover,
or that there is a dreadfully scrappy dinii^, the evident
remains of a party to which I didn't invite you, mid yet
I conceal my agony, I wear a merry smile, I say, ‘ What 1
come to take pot-luck with us. Brown, my boy ? Betsy I
Put a knife and fork for Mr. Brown, i^t ! Welcome I
Fall to ! It’s my best I ’ I say that humbug which
I am performing is beautiful self-denial — ^that hypocrisy
is true virtue. Oh, if every man spoke his mind, what
an intolerable society ours would be to live in !
As the young gentlemen are announced. Lady Castlewood
advances towards them with perfect ease and good humour,
‘ We have heard, Harry,’ she says, looking at the latter
with a special friendliness, ‘ of this most extraordinary
circumstance. My Lord Castlewood said at breakfast
that he should wait on you this very day, Mr. Warrington,
and, Cousin Harry, we intend not to love you any the less
because you are poor.’
‘ We shall be able to show now that it is not for your
TIRGnUAXS tr
578
THE VIRGINIANS
acres that we like you, Harry ! ’ says Lady Fanny, following
her mamma’s lead,
* And I to whom the acres have fallen ? ’ says Mr. George,
with a smile and a bow.
‘ Oh, cousin, we shall like you for being like Harry 1 ’
replies the arch Lady Fanny.
Ah I who that has seen the world, has not admired
that astonishing ease with which fine ladies drop you and
pick you up again ? Both the ladies now addressed
themselves almost exclusively to the younger brother.
They were quite civil to Mr. George : but with Mr. Harry
they were fond, they were softly familiar, they were gently
kind, they were affectionately reproachful. Why had
l^htrry not been for days and days to see them ?
‘ Better to have had a dish of tea and a game at piquet
with them than with some other folks/ says Lady Castle-
wood. ‘ If we had won enough to buy a paper of pins
from you we should have be^ content ; but young gentle-
men don’t know what is for their own good,’ says mamma.
‘ Now you have no more money to play with, you can
come and play with us, cousin I ’ cries fond Lady Faimy,
lifting up a fing^, ‘ and so your misfortune will be good
fortune to us.’
George was puzzled. This welcome of his brother
was very differ^t from that to which he had looked. All
these compliments and attentions paid to the younger
brother, thou^ he was without a guinea ? Perhaps the
people were n<^ so bad as they w^e painted ? The Blackest
of sB Blacks is said not to be of quite so dark a complexion
as some folks describe him.
This affectionate conversation continued for some
twenty minutes, at the end of which period my Lord Castle-
wood made his appearance, wig on head, and sword by side.
He greeted both the yoimg men with much politeness :
one not more than the other. ‘ If you were to come
to us — ^and I, for one, cordially rejoice to see you — what
a pity it is you did not come a few months earlier ! A
certain evening at piquet would then most likely never
have taken place. A younger son would have been more
prudent.’
* Yes, indeed,’ said Harry,
* Or a kinsman more compassionate. But I fear that
k>ve of play runs in the blood of all of us. I have it from
ARIADNE
679
my father, and it has made me the poorest peer in England,
Those fair ladies whom you see before you are not exempt.
My poor brother Will is a martyr to it ; and what I, for
my part, win on one day, I lose on the next, ’Tis shocking,
positively, the rage for play in England. All my poor
cousin’s bank-notes parted company from me within twenty-
four hours after I got them.’
‘ I have played, like other gentlemen, but never to hurt
myself, and never indeed caring much for the sport,’
remarked Mr. Warrington.
* When we heard that my lord had played with Harry,
we did so scold him,’ cried the ladies.
" But if it had not been I, thou knowest, Cousin Warring-
ton, some other person would have had thy money. ’Tis
a poor consolation, but as such Harry must please to take
it, and be glad that friends w'on his money, w’ho wish
him w^ell, not strangers, w’ho cared nothing for him, and
fleeced him.’
‘ Eh ! a tooth out is a tooth out, though it be your
brother that puUs it, my lord ! ’ said Mr. George, laughing.
‘ Harry must bear the penalty of his faults, and pay his
debts, like other men.’
‘ I am sure I have never said or thought otherwise.
’Tis not like an Englishman, to be sulky because he is
beaten,’ says Harry.
^ Your hand, cousin ! You speak like a man ! ’ cries
my lord, with delight. The ladies smile to each other.
‘ My sister, in Virginia, has known how to bring up her
sons as gentlemen ! ’ exclaims Lady Castlewood, enthusias-
tically.
* I protest you must not be growing so amiable now’
you are poor. Cousin Harry 1 ’ cries Cousin Eanny. ‘ Why,
mamma, we did not know half his good qualities when he
was only Fortunate Youth and Prince of Virginia 1 You
are exactly like him. Cousin George, but I vow’ you can’t
be as amiable as your brother ! ’
‘ I am the Prince of Virginia, but I fear I am not the
Fortunate Youth,’ said George, gravely.
Harry was beginning, ‘ By Jove, he is the best ’
when the noise of a harpsichord w’as heard from the upper
room. The lad blushed : the ladies smiled,
‘ ’Tis Maria, above,’ said Lady Castlewood. ‘ Let some
of us go up to her.’
580
THE VIRGINIANS
The ladies rose, and made way towards the door ; and
Harry followed them, blushing very much. George was
about to join the party, but Lord Castlewood checkSi him.
‘ Nay, if all the ladies follow your brother,’ his lordship
said, ‘ let me at least have the benefit of your company
and conversation. I long to hear the account of your
captivity and rescue, Cousin George ! ’
" Oh, we must hear that too ! ’ cried one of the ladies,
lingering.
^ I am greedy, and should like it all by myself ,’ said Lord
Castlewood, looking at her very sternly; and followed
the women to the door, and closed it upon them, with
a low bow.
^ Your brother has no doubt acquainted you with the
history of all that has happened to him in this house.
Cousin George ? ’ asked George’s kinsman.
‘ Y^, including the quarrel with Mr. WiU, and the
engagement to my Lady Maria,’ replies Gteorge, with a bow.
* I may be pardoned for sayir^, that he hath met with but
ill fortune here, my lord.’
‘ Which no one can deplore more cordially than myself.
My brother lives with horse-jockeys and trainers, and the
wild^ bloods of the town, and between us there is very
little sympathy. We should not all live together, were
we not so poor. This is the house w^hich our grandmother
occupied before she went to America and married Colonel
Esmond. Much of the old furniture belonged to her.’
George looked round the wainscoted parlour with some
intei^. ‘ Our house has not flourished in the last twenty
years ; though we had a promotion of rank a score of years
since, owing to some interest we had at Court, then. But
the malady of play has been the ruin of us all. I am
a miserable victim to it ; only too proud to sell myself
and title to a rotwri^e, as many noblemen, less scrupulous,
have done. Pride is my fault, my dear cousin. I remember
how I was born ! ’ And his lordship laid his hand on his
shirt-frill, turned out his toe, and looked his cousin nobly
in the face.
Young George Warrington’s natural disposition was to
believe everything which everybody said to him. When
once deceiv^, however, or undeceived about the character
of a person, he became utterly incredulous, and he saluted
this fine speech of my lord’s with a sardonical, inward
ARIADNE
581
laughter, preserving his gravity, however, and scarce allow-
ing any of his scorn to appear in his words.
‘ We have all our faults, my lord. That of play hath
been condoned over and over again in gentlemen of our
rank. Having heartily forgiven my brother, surely I can-
not presume to be your lordship’s judge in the matter ;
and instead of playing and losing, I wish sincerely that
you had both played and won ! ’
‘ So do I, with all my heart ! ’ says my lord, with a sigh.
‘ I augur well for your goodness w'hen you can speak in
this w'ay, and for your experience and knowiedge of the
world, too, cousin, of w^hich you seem to possess a greater
share than most young men of your age. Your poor
Harry hath the best heart in the world ; but I doubt
w^hether his head be very strong.’
‘ Not very strong, indeed. But he hath the art to
make friends wherever he goes, and in spite of all his
imprudences most people love him.’
‘ I do — we all do, I’m sure ; as if he were our brother ! ’
cries my lord.
‘ He has often described in his letters his welcome at
your lordship’s house. My mother keeps them all, you
may be sure. Harry’s style is not very learned, but his
heart is so good, that to read him is better than wit.’
I may be mistaken, but I fancy his brother possesses
a good heart and a good wit, too ! ’ says my lord, otetinately
gracious.
* I am as Heaven made me, cousin ; and perhaps some
more experience and sorrow’ than has fallen to the lot
of most young men.’
‘ This misfortune of your poor brother — mean this
piece of good fortune, your sudden reappearance — ^has
not quite left Harry without resources ? ’ continued Lord
Castlew’ood, very gently.
‘ With nothing but what his mother can leave him,
or I, at her death, can spare him. What is the usual
portion here of a younger brother, my lord ? ’
‘ Eh ! A younger brother here is — ^you know — ^in fine,
everybody know’s what a younger brother is,’ said my
lord, and shrugged his shoulders and looked his guest in
the face.
The other w’ent on : ‘ We are the best of friends, but
we are flesh and blood : and I don’t pretend to do more
582
THE VIRGINIANS
for him than is usually done for younger brothers. Why
give him money 1 That he should squander it at cards
or horse-racing ? My lord, we have cards and jockeys
in Virginia, too ; and my poor Harry hath distinguished
himself in his own country already, before he came to yours.
He inherits the family failing for dissipation.’
‘ Poor fellow, poor fellow, I pity him ! ’
‘ Our estate, you see, is great, but our income is small.
We have little more money than that which we get from
England for our tobacco — and very little of that too —
for our tobacco comes back to us in the shape of goods,
clothes, leather, groceries, ironmongery, nay, wine and
beer for our people and ourselves. Harry may come back
and share all these ; there is a nag in the stable for him,
a pi^ of venison on the table, a little ready money to keep
his pocket warm, and a coat or two every year. This
will go on whilst my mother liv^, unless, which is far
from improbable, he gets into some quarrel with Madam
Esmond. Then, whilst I live he will have the run of the
house and all it contains : then, if I die leaving children,
he will be less and less welcome. His future, my lord,
is a dismal one, unless some strange piece of luck turn up
on which we were fools to speculate. Henceforth he is
doomed to dependence, and I know no worse lot, than
to be dependent on a self-villed woman like our mother.
The means he had to make himself respected at home he
hath squandered aw^ay here. He has flung his patrimony
to the dogs, and poverty and subserviency are now his
only portion.’ Mr. Warrington delivered this speech
with considerable spirit and volubility, and his cousin
heard him respectfully.
‘ You speak well, Mr. Warrington. Have you ever
thought of public life ? ’ said my lord.
‘ (M course I have thought of public life like every man
of my station — every man, that is, who cares for something
beyond a dice-box or a stable,’ replies George. ‘ I hope,
my lord, to be able to take my own place, and my unlucky
brother must content himself with his. This I say ad-
vii^dly, having heard from him of certain engagements
which he has formed, and which it would be misery to all
parties were he to attempt to execute now.’
^ Your logic is very strojm,’ said my lord. ‘ Shall we
go up and see the ladies There is a picture above stairs
ARIADNE
^3
which your grandfather is said to have executed. Before
you go, my dear cousin, you will please to fix a day w^hen
our family may have the honour of receiving you. Castle-
wood, you know, is alw^ays your home when we are there.
It is something like your Virginian Castlewood, cousin,
from your account. We have beef, and mutton, and ale,
and w’ood, in plenty ; but money is wofully scarce amongst
us.’
They ascended to the drawing-room, where, however,
they found only one of the ladies of the family. This was
my Lady Maria, who came out of the embrasure of a window^
where she and Harry Warrington had been engaged in talk.
Gteorge made his best bow, Maria her lowest curt^.
‘ You are indeed w^onderfully like your brother,’ she said,
giving him her hand. ‘ And from what he says. Cousin
George, I think you are as good as he is.’
At the sight of her swollen eyes and tearful face George
felt a pang of remorse. ‘Poor thing,’ he thought. ‘ Harry
lias been vaunting my generosity and virtue to her, and
I have been jfiaying the selfish elder brother dowmstairs !
How old she looks ! How could he ever have a passion
for such a woman as that ? ’ How ? Because he did
not see with your eyes, Mr. George. He saw rightly too
now with his own, perhaps. I never know whether to
pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
After the introduction a little ta&: took place, which
for a w’^hile Lady Maria managed to carry on in easy manner :
but though ladies in this matter of social h3^ocrisy are,
I think, far more consummate performers than men, after
a sentence or two the poor lady broke out into a sob, and,
motioning Harry away with her hand, fairly fled from
the room.
Harry was rushing forward, but stopped — checked by
that sign. My lord said his poor sister was subject to these
fits of nerves, and had already been ill that morning.
After this event our young gentlemen thought it was need-
less to prolong their visit. Lord Castlewood followed them
downstairs, accompanied them to the door, admired their
nags in the phaeton, and waved them a friendly farewell.
^ And so we have been coaxing and cuddling in the
window, and we part good friends, Harry ? Is it not so ? ’
says George to his charioteer.
‘ Oh, she is a good woman ! ’ cries Harry, lashing the
584
THE VIRGINIANS
horses. ‘ I know you’ll think so when you come to know
her.’
‘ When you take her home to Virginia ? A pretty
welcome our mother will give her. She will never forgive
me for not breaking the match off, nor you for making it.’
‘ I can’t help it, George ! Don’t you be popping your
ugly head so close to my ears, Gumbo ! After what has
passed between us, I am bound in honour to stand by her.
If she sees no objection, I must find none. I told her all.
I told her that madam w^oizld be very rusty at first ; but
that she w’as very fond of me, and must end by relenting.
And w’hen yovL come to the property, I told her that I knew
my dearest George so well, that I might count upon sharing
with him.’
* The deuce you did ! Let me tell you, my dear, that
I have b^n telling my Lord Castlewood quite a different
story. That as an elder brother I intend to have all
my rights — ^there, don’t flog that near horse so — and that
you can but look forward to poverty and dependence.’
* What ? You wm’t help me ? ’ cries Harry, turning
quite pale. ‘George, I don’t believe it, though I hear
it out of your own mouth ! ’
There was a minute’s pause after this outbreak, during
whidbi Harry did not even look at his brother, but sat,
gazing blindly before him, the picture of grief and gloom.
He was driving so near to a road-post, that the carriage
might have been upset but for George’s pulling the rein.
‘ You had better take the reins, sir,’ said Harry, ‘ I told
you you had better take them.’
‘ Did you ever know me fail you. Harry ? ’ George asked.
‘ No,’ said the other, ‘ not till now" ’ — ^the tears w"ere
rolling down his cheeks as he spoke.
‘ My dear, I think one day you will say I have done my
duty.’
‘ What have you done ? ’ asked Harry.
‘I have said you were a younger brother — that you
have spent all your patrimony, and that your portion at
home must be very slender. Is it not true ? ’
‘ Yes, but I would not have believed it, if ten thousand
mm had told me,’ said Harry. ‘Whatever happened
to me, I thought I could trust you, George Warrington.’
And in this frame of mind Harry remained during the
rest of the drive.
ARIADNE
5S5
Their dinner was served soon after their return to their
lodgings, of w'hich Harry scarce ate any, though he drank
freely of the wine before him.
"That wine is a bad consoler in trouble, Harry,’ his
brother remarked.
‘ I have no other, sir,’ said Harry, grimly ; and having
drunk glass after glass in silence, he presently seized his
hat, and left the room.
He did not return for three hours. George, in much
anxiety about his brother, had not left home meanwhile,
but re^ bis book, and smoked the pipe of patience. ‘ It
VMS shabby to say I would not aid him, and, God help me,
it was not true. I won’t leave him, though he marries
a blackamoor,’ thought George : ' have I not done him
harm enough already, by coming to life again ? Where
has he gone ; has he gone to play ?
" Good God ! what has happened to thee ? ’ cried George
Warrington, presently, wlien his brother came in, looking
ghastly pale.
He came up and took his brother’s hand. * I can take
it now, Georgy,’ he said. ‘ Perhaps w^hat you did w^as
right, though I for one will never believe that you would
throw your brother off in distress. I’ll tell you what. At
dinner, I thought suddenly. I’ll go back to her and speak to
her. I’ll say to her, “ Maria, poor as I am, your conduct
to me has been so noble, that, by Heaven ! I am yours
to take or to leave. If you will have me, here I am :
I will enlist : I w ill w^ork : I will try and maJke a livelihood
for myself somehow, and my bro my relations will
relent, and give us enough to live on.” That’s what
I determined to tell her ; and I did, George. I ran all the
w^ay to Kensington in the rain — look, I am splashed from
head to foot, — and found them all at dinner, all except
Will, that is. I spoke out that very moment to them all,
sitting round the table, over their wine. “ Maria,” says
I, "" a poor fellow w-ants to redeem his promise which he
made w^hen he fancied he was rich. Will you take him ? ”
I found I had plenty of words, and didn’t hem and stutter
as I am doing now. I spoke ever so long, and I ended
by saying I would do my best and my duty by her, so help
me God !
" When I had done, she came up to me quite kind. She
took my hand, and kissed it before the rest. My dearest,
u 3
56e
THE VIRGINIANS
best Harry !” she said (those were her words, I don’t want
otherwise to be praising myself), “you are a noble heart,
and I thank you with ail mine. But, my dear, I have
long seen it w^as only duty, and a foolish promise made
by a young man to an old woman, that has held you to
your engagement. To keep it would make you miserable,
my dear. I absolve you from it, thanking you with all
my heart for your fidelity, and blessing and loving my
dear cousin always.” And she came up and kissed me
before them all, and W'ent out of the room quite stately,
and without a single tear. They W’ere all crying, especially
my lord, w'ho w^as sobbing quite loud. I didn’t think he
had so much feeling. And she, George ? Oh, isn’t she
a noble creature ? ’
‘ Here’s her health ! ’ cries George, filling one of the glasses
that still stood before him.
‘ Hip, hip, huzzay ! ’ says Harry. He w^as wild with
delight at being free.
CHAPTER LVII
IN WHICH MB, HABBY’S NOSE CONTINUES TO BE PUT OUT OP JOINT
DAME DE Bernstein w^as scarcely
less pleased than her Virginian
nephews at the result of Harry’s
final interview with Lady Maria.
Geoi^ informed the baroness of
what had passed, in a billet
which he sent to her the same
evening ; and shortly afterwards
her nephew^ Castlewood, whose
visits to liis aunt w^ere very rare,
came to pay his respects to her,
and frankly spoke about the
circumstances which had taken
place ; for no man knew better
than my Lord Castlew^ood how’ to
be frank upon occasion, and now'
that the business between Maria
and Hairy was ended, w'hat need w'as there of reticence or
hypociisy I The game had been played, and w'as over :
MR. HARRY’S N(^E OUT OF JOINT
587
he had no objection now to speak of its various moves,
stratagems, finesses. ‘ She is my own sister,’ said my
lord, afiectionately ; ‘ she won’t have many more chances —
many more such chances of marrying and establishing
herself. I might not approve of the match in all respects,
and I might pity your ladyship’s young Virginian favourite :
but of course such a piece of good fortune w^as not to be
throwm away, and I was bound to stand by my own fllesh
and blood.’
‘ Your candour does your lordship honour,’ says Madame
de Bernstein, ‘and your love for your sister is quite
edifying ! ’
‘ Nay, we have lost the game, and I am speaking sans
rtmcune. It is not for you, who have w^on, to bear malice,’
says my lord, with a bow.
Madame de Bernstein protested she was never in her
life in better humour. ‘ Confess, now, Eugene, that visit
of Maria to Harry at the spunging-house — that touching
giving up of all his presents to her, was a stroke of thy
invention ? ’
‘ Pity for the young man, and a sense of what was due
from Maria to her friend — ^her affianced lover — in misfor-
tune, sure these were motives sufficient to make her act as
she did,’ replies Lord Castlewood, demurely.
‘ But ’twas you advised her, my good nephew ? ’
Castlewood, with a shrug of his shoulders, owned that he
did advise his sister to see Mr. Henry Warrington. ‘ But
we should have won, in spite of your ladyship,’ he continued,
‘ had not the elder brother made his appearance. And
I had been trying to console my poor Maria by show-
ing her what a piece of good fortune it is after all, that
we lost.’
‘ Suppose she had married Harry, and then Cousin
George had made his appearance ? ’ remarks the baroness.
‘ Effectivement,^ cries Eugene, taking snufi. ‘ As the
grave was to give up its dead, let us be thankful to the grave
for disgorging in time ! I am bound to say, that Mr.
George Warrington seems to be a man of sense, and not
more selfish than other elder sons and men of the world.
My poor Molly fancied that he might be a — what shall
I say ? — a greenhorn perhaps is the term — like his younger
brother. She fondly hoped that he might be inclined to
go share and share alike with Twin junior ; in which
o88
THE %^RGINIANS
case, so infatuated was she about the young fellow, that
I believe she would have taken him. “ Harry Warrington,
with half a loaf, might do very well,” says I, “ but Harry
Warrington with no bread, my dear ! ” ’
‘ How no bread ? ’ asks the baroness.
* Well. No bread except at his brother’s side-table.
The elder said as much.’
‘ What a hard-hearted "WTetch ! ’ cries Madame de
Bernstein.
‘ Ah, bah ! I play with you, aunt, cartes sur table !
Mr. George only did what everybody else would do ; and
'we have no right to be angry with him, really, we haven’t.
Molly herself acknowledge as much, after her first burst
of grief was over, and I brought her to listen to reason.
The silly old creature I to be so wild about a young dad
at her time of life I ’
‘ ’Twas a real passion, I almost do believe,’ said Madame
de Bernstein.
‘ You should have heard her take leave of him ! G^etait
iouchant, rm 'pardk d^honneur I I cried. Before George,
I could not help myself. The young fellow with muddy
stockings, and his hair about his eyes, flings himself amongst
us when we were at dinner ; makes his ofier to Molly
in a very frank and noble manner, and in good language,
too ; and she replies. Begad it put me in mind of Mrs.
Woffington in the new^ Scotch play, that Lord Bute’s
man has wrote — Dcrnghs — ^w hat d’ye call it ? She clings
round the lad ; she bids him adieu in heartrending accents.
She steps out of the room in a stately despair — ^no more
chocolate, thank you. If she had made a mauvais 'pas
no one could retire from it with more dignity. ’Twas
a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out
of our position, but we retired with all the honours of
war.’
‘ Molly won’t die of the disappointment ! ’ said my
lord’s aunt, sipping her cup.
My lord snarled a grin, and showed his yellow teeth.
‘ He, he ! ’ he said, ‘ she hath once or twice before had
the malady very severely, and recovered perfectly. It
don’t kill, as your ladyship knows, at Molly’s age.’
How should her ladyship know ? She did not marry
Doctor Tusher until she was advanced in life. She did
not become Madame de Bernstein until still later. Old
MR. HARRY’S NOSE OUT OP JOINT 589
Dido, a poet remarks, was not ignorant of misfortune,
and lienee learned to have compassion on the wretched.
People in the little world, as I have been told, quarrel
and fight, and go on abusing each other, and are not
reconciled for ever so long. But people in the great w^orld
are surely wiser in their generation. They have differ-
ences ; they cease seeing each other. They make it up
and come together again, and no questions are asked.
A stray prodigal, or a stray puppy-dog, is thus brought
in under the benefit of an amnesty, though you know
he has been away in ugly company. For six months
past, ever since the CJastlewoods and Madame de Bernstein
had been battling for possession of poor Harry Warrington,
these two branches of the Esmond family had remained
apart. .Now, the question being settled, they were free to
meet again, as though no difference ever had separated
them : and Madame de Bernstein di*ove in her great coach
to Lady Castlewood’s rout, and the Esmond ladies appeared
smiling at Madame de Bernstein’s drums, and loved each
other just as much m they previously had done.
^ So, sir, I hear you have acted like a hard-hearted
monster about your poor brother Harry I ’ says the baroness,
ddighted, and menacing George with her stick.
‘ I acted but upon your ladyship’s hint, and desired
to see whether it was for himself or his reputed money
that hie kinsfolk wanted to have him,’ replies George,
turning rather red.
‘ Nay, Maria could not marry a poor fellow who was
utterly penniless, and whose elder brother said he would
give him nothing 1 ’
‘ I did it for the best, madam,’ says George, still blushing.
" And so thou didst, O thou hypocrite ! ’ cries the old
lady.
' Hypocrite, madam I and why ? ’ asks Mr. Warrington,
drawing himself up in much state.
‘ I know all, my infant ! ’ says the baroness in Fren(*h.
‘ Thou art very like thy grandfather. Come, that I embrace
thee ! Harry has told me all, and that thou hast divided
thy little patrimony with him ! ’
‘ It was but natural, madam. We have had common
hearts and purses since we were born. I but feigned
hard-heartedness in order to try those people yonder,’
says George, with filling eyes.
590 THE VIRGINIANS
‘ And thou wilt divide Tir^nia with him, too ? ’ asks
the Bernstein.
‘ I don’t say so. It were not just,’ replied Mr. Warrington.
‘ The land must go to the eldest born, and Harry would
not have it otherwise : and it may be I shall die, or my
mother outlive the pair of us. But half of what is mine is
his : and he, it must be remembered, only was extravagant
because he was mistaken as to liis position.’
‘ But it is a knight of old, it is a Bayard, it is the grand-
father come to life I ’ cried Madame de Bernstein to her
attendant, as she was retiring for the night. And that
evening, when the lads left her, it was to poor Harry she
gave the tw^o fillers, and to George the rouged cheek,
who blushed for his part, almost as deep as that often-dyed
rose, at such a mark of his old kinswoman’s favour.
Although Harry Warrington was the least envious of
men, and did honour to his brother as in all respects his
chief, guide, and superior, yet no wonder a certain feeling
of humiliation and disappointment oppressed the young
man after his deposition from his eminence as Fortunate
Youth and heir to boundless Virginian territories. Our
friends at Kensington might promise and vow that they
would love him all the better after his fall ; Harry made
a low bow and professed himself very thankful ; but he
could not help perceiving, when he went with his brother
to the state entertainment with w^hich my Lord Castlewood
regaled his new-found kinsman, that George was aH in all
to his cousins, had all the talk, compliments, and petits
soim for himself ; whilst of Harry no one took any notice
save poor Maria, who followed him with wistful looks,
pursued him with eyes conveying dismal reproaches, and,
as it were, blamed him because she had left him. ‘ Ah I ’
the eyes seemed to say, ' ’tis mighty well of you, Harry,
to have accepted the freedom which I gave you ; but I had
no intention, sir, that you should be so pleased at being
let off.’ She gave him up, but yet she did not quite forgive
him for taking her at her word. She would not have him,
and yet she would. Oh, my young friends, how delightful
is the beginning of a love business, and how undignified,
sometimes, the end ! ^
This is what Harry Warrington, no doubt, felt when he
went to Kensington, and encountered the melancholy
reproachful eyes of his cousin. Yes ! it is a foolish position
MR. HARRY’S NOSE OUT OP JOINT 591
to be in ; but it is also melancholy to look into a house
you have once lived in, and see black casements and
emptiness where once shone the fires of welcome. Mel-
ancholy ? Yes ; but, ha ! how bitter, how melancholy,
how absurd to look up as you pass sentimentally by No. 13,
and see somebody else grinning out of window, and evi-
dently on the best terms with the landlady. I always feel
hurt, even at an inn which I frequent, if I see other folks’
trunks and boots at the doors of the rooms which w’ere
once mine. Have those boots lolled on the sofa which
once I reclined on ? I kick you from before me, you
muddy, vulgar highlows !
So, considering that his period of occupation was over,
and Maria’s rooms, if not given up to a new tenant, were,
at any rate, to let, Harry did not feel very easy in his
cousin’s company, nor she possibly in his. He found
either that he had nothing to say to her, or that what she
had to say to him was rather dull and commonplace, and
that the red lip of a white-necked pipe of Virginia was
decidedly more agreeable to him now than Maria’s softest
accents and most melancholy moue. When George went to
Kensington, then, Harry did not care much about going,
and pleaded other engagements.
At his uncle’s house in Hill Street the poor lad was no
better amused, and, indeed, was treated by the virtuous
people there with scarce any attention at all. The ladies
did not scruple to deny themselves when he came ; he
could scarce have believed in such insincerity after their
caresses, their w^eloome, their repeated vows of affection ;
but happening to sit with the Lamberts for an hour after he
had called upon his aunt, he saw her ladyship’s chairmen
arrive with an empty chair, and his aunt step out and
enter the vehicle, and not even blush w’hen he made her
a bow from the opposite window. To be denied by his
own relations — ^to have that door which had opened to
liim so kindly, slammed in his face ! He would not have
believed such a thing possible, poor simple Harry said.
Perhaps he thought the door-knocker had a tender heart,
and w^as not made of brass : not more changed than the
head of that knocker was my Lady Warrington’s virtuous
face when she passed her nephew.
‘ My father’s own brother’s wife ! What have I done
to offend her ? 0 Aunt Lambert, Aunt Lambert, did
592
THE \TRGINIANS
you ever see such cold-heartedness ? ’ cries out Harry,
with his usual impetuosity.
‘ Do im make any difference to you, my dear Harry ? ’
says Aunt Lambert, with a side look at her youngest daugh-
ter. ‘ Tile w'orld may look coldly at you, but we don’t
belong to it : so you may come to us in safety.’
‘ In this house you are different from other people,’
replies Harry. ‘ I don’t know how, but I always feel
quiet and happy somehow when I come to you.’
‘ Quis me uno vivit felicior ? aut magis hac est
Optandum vita dicere quis potuit ? ’
calls out General Lambert. ‘ Do you know where I got
these verses, Mr. Gowmsman ? ’ and he addresses his son
from collie, who is come to pass an Easter holiday with
Ms parents.
* You got them out of Catullus, sir,’ says the scholar.
‘ I got them out of no such thing, sir. I got them out
of my favourite Democritus Junior — out of old Burton,
who has provided many indifferent scholars with learning ; ’
and who and Montaigne were favourite authors with the
good general.
m
593
CHAPTER LVIII
WHERE WE DO WHAT CATS MAY DO
E have said how our
Virginians, with a wis-
dom not uncommon in
youth, had chosen to
adopt strong Jacobite
opinions, and to profess
a prodigious affection
for the exiled royal
family. The banished
prince had recognized
Madam Esmond’s
father as Marquis of
Esmond, and she did
not choose to be very
angry with an unfor-
tunate race, that, after
all, w’as so willing to
acknowiedge the merits
of her family. As for
any little scandal about
her sister, Madame de
Bernstein, and the Old
Chevalier, she tossed
aw^ay from her with scorn the recollection of that
odious circumstance, asserting, with perfect truth, that
the two first monarchs of the House of Hanover w^ere
quite as bad as any Stuarts in regard to their domestic
morality. But the king de facto was the king, as well
as his Majesty dc jure, De Facto had been solemnly
crowned and anointed at church, and had likewise utterly
discomfited De Jure, when they came to battle for the
kingdom together. Madam’s clear opinion w^as, then, that
her sons ow^ed it to themselves as w^ell as the sovereign
to appear at his royal Court. And if his Majesty should
have been minded to confer a lucrative post, or a blue or
red ribbon upon either of them, she, for her part, w^ould
not have been in the least surprised. She made no doubt
594
THE VIRGINIANS
but that the king knew the Virginian Esmonds as well
as any other members of his nobility. The lads were
specially commanded, then, to present themselves at Court,
and, I dare say, their mother would have been very angry
had she knowm that George took Harry’s laced coat on the
day when he went to make his bow at Kensington.
A hundred years ago the king’s drawing-room was open
almost every day to his nobility and gentry ; and loyalty —
especially since the war had begun — could gratify itself
a score of times in a month with the august sight of the
sovereign. A wise avoidance of the enemy’s ships-of-w’ar ;
a gracious acknowledgement of the inestimable loss the
British Isles would suffer by the seizure of the royal person
at sea, caused the monarch to forgo those visits to Ms
native Hanover which was so dear to his royal heart, and
compelled him to remain, it must be own^, unwillingly
amongst his loving Britons. A Hanoverian lady, however,
whose virtues had endeared her to the prince, strove to
console him for his enforced absence from Herrenhausen.
And from the lips of the Countess of Walmoden (on whom
the imperial beneficence had gracefully conferr^ a Mgh
title of British honour) the revered Defender of the Faith
could hear the accents of his native home.
To this beloved sovereign, Mr. Warrington requested Ms
uncle, an assiduous courtier, to present Mm : and as
Mr. Lambert had to go to Court likewise, and thank his
Majesty for his promotion, the two gentlemen made the
journey to Kensington together, engaging a hackney
coach for the purpose, as my Lord Wrotham’s carriage was
now wanted by its rightful owner, who had returned to
Ms house in town. They alighted at Kensington Palace
Gate, where the sentries on duty knew and saluted the
good general, and hence modestly made their way on foot
to the summer residence of the sovereign. Walking under
the portico of the palace, they entered the gallery w^Mch
leads to the great black-marble staircase (which hath been
so richly decorated and painted by Mr. Kent), and then
passed through several rooms, richly hung wdth tapestry
and adorned with pictures and bustos, until they came
to the king’s great drawing-room, where that famous
Venus by Titian is, and, amongst other masterpieces, the
picture of St. Francis adoring the infant Saviour, performed
by Sir Peter Paul Rubens ; and here, with the rest of the
WE DO WHAT CATS MAY DO 595
visitors to the Court, the gentlemen waited until his Majesty
issued from his private apartments, where he was in
conference with certain personages who were called in
the newspaper language of that day his M-j-ty’s
M-n-st-rs.
George Warrington, who had never been in a palace
before, had leisure to admire the place, and regard the
people round him. He saw fine pictures for the first time
too, and I dare say delighted in that charming piece of
Sir Anthony Vandyke, representing King Charles the Pirst,
his queen and family, and the noble picture of Esther
before Ahasuerus, painted by Tintoret, and in which all
the figures are dressed in the magnificent Venetian habit.
With the contemplation of these works he was so enrap-
tured, that he scarce heard all the remarks of his good
friend the general, who w^as whispering into his young
companion’s almost heedless ear the names of some of the
personages round about them.
^ Yonder,’ says Mr. Lambert, ^ are two of my Lords
of the Admiralty, Mr. Gilbert Elliot and Admiral Boscawen :
yoyjr Boscawen, whose fleet fired the first gun in your
waters two years ago. That stout gentleman all belaced
with gold is Mr, Pox, that w^as minister, and is now content
to be Pa3nnaster with a great salary.’
‘ He carries the auri fames on his person ; why, his
waistcoat is a perfect Potosi ! ’ says George.
‘ Alieni appetms — ^how goes the text ? He loves to get
money and to spend it,’ continues General Lambert. ‘ Yon
is my Lord Chief Justice Willes, talking to my Lord of
Salisbury, Doctor Hoadley, w^ho, if he serve his God as
he serves his king, will be translated to some very high
promotion in heaven. He belongs to your grandfather’s
time, and was loved by Dick Steele and hated by the Dean.
With them is my Lord of London, the learned Doctor
Sherlock. My lords of the lawn sleeves have lost half
their honours now, I remember when I was a boy in
my mother’s hand, she made me go down on my knees to
the Bishop of Rochester ; him who went over the water,
and became minister to somebody who shall be nameless —
Perkin’s Bishop. That handsome fair man is Admiral
Smith. He was president of poor Byng’s court martial,
and strove in vain to get him ofi his penalty ; Tom of Ten
Thousand they call him in the fleet. The French Ambas-
596
THE VIRGESriANS
sador had him broke, when he was a lieutenant, for making
a French man-of-war lower top-sails to him, and the king
made Tom a captain the next day. That tall, haughty-look-
ing man is my Lord George Sackville, who, now I am a
major-general myself, will treat me somewhat better than
a footman. I wish my stout old Blakeney were here ; he
is the soldier’s darling, and as kind and brave as yonder
poker of a nobleman is brave and 1 am your lordship’s
very humble servant. This is a young gentleman who is
just from America, and was in Braddock’s sad business
two years ago.’
‘ Oh, indeed ! ’ says the poker of a nobleman. ' I have
the honour of speaking to Mr.
‘ To Major-Generad Lambert, at your lordship’s service,
and who was in his Majesty’s some time before you entered
it. That, Mr. Warrington, is the first commoner in England,
Mr. Speaker Onslow. Where is your uncle ? I shall have
to present you myself to his Majesty if Sir Miles delays
much longer.’ As he spoke, the worthy general addressed
himself entirely to his young friend, making no sort of
account of his colleague, who stalked away with a scared
look as if amazed at the other’s audacity. A hundred
years ago, a nobleman was a nobleman, and expected
to be achnired os such.
Sir Miles’s red waistcoat appeared in sight presently,
and many cordial greetings passed between him, his nephew,
and General Lambert : for we have described how Sir
Miles was the most affectionate of men. So the general
had quitted my Lord Wrotham’s house ? It was time,
as his lordship himself wished to occupy it ? Very good ;
but consider what a loss for the neighbours !
‘ We miss you, we positively miss you, my dear general,’
cries Sir Miles. * My daughters were in love with those
lovely young ladies — ^upon my word they were, and my
Lady Warrington and my girls were debating over and
over again how they should find an opportunity of making
the acquaintance of your charming family. We feel as if
we were old friends already ; indeSi we do, general, if you
will permit me the liberty of saying so ; and w^e love you,
if I may be allowed to speak frankly, on account of your
friendship and kindness to our dear nephews ; though
w’e w^ere a little jealous, I own a little jealous of them,
because they went so often to see you. Often and often
WE BO WHAT CATS MAY DO
597
have I said to my Lady ‘Warrington, My dear, why
don’t we make acquaintance with the general t Why
don’t we ask Mm and Ms ladies to come over in
a family way and dine with some other plain comitry
gentlefolks ‘t ” Carry my most sincere respects to Mrs.
Lambert, I pray, sir ; and thank her for her goodness
to these young gentlemen. My ow'n flesh and blood, sir ;
my dear, dear brother’s boys ! ’ He passed his hand across
his manly eyes : he w^as choking almost with generous and
affectionate emotion.
WTiilst they w^ere discoursing — George Warrington the
w'hile restraining Ms laughter with admirable gravity —
the door of the king’s apartments opened, and the pages
entered, preceding Ms Majesty. He w^as followed by Ms
burly son, Ms royal Mghness the duke, a very corpulent
prince, with a coat and face of blazing scarlet : behind
them came various gentlemen and officers of state, among
whom George at once recognized the famous Mr. Secretary
Pitt, by Ms tall stature, Ms eagle eye and beak, his grave and
majestic presence. As I see that solemn figure passing,
even a hundred years off, I protest I feel a present awe,
and a desire to take my hat off. I am not frightened at
Greorge the Second ; nor are my eyes dazzled by the por-
tentous appearance of Ms royal higlmess the Duke of
Culloden and Fontenoy ; but the Great Commoner, the
terrible Cornet of Horse ! His figure bestrides our narrow
isle of a century back hke a Colossus ; and I hush as he
passes in Ms gouty shoes, Ms thunderbolt hand wrapped
in flannel. Perhaps as w^e see Mm now% issuing with dark
looks from the royal closet, angry scenes have been passing
between Mm and Ms august master. He has been boring
that old monarch for hours with prodigious long speeches,
full of eloquence, voluble with the noblest phrases upon
the commonest topics ; but, it must be confessed, utterly
repulsive to the little shrewd old gentleman, ‘ at whose
feet he lays Mmself,’ as the phrase is, and who has the most
thorough dislike for fine toedry and for fine hrose too !
The sublime minister passes solemnly through the crowd ;
the company ranges itself respectfully round the wall ;
and Ms Majesty w^alks round the circle, his royal son
lagging a little behind, and engaging select individuals
in conversation for his owm part.
The monarch is a little, keen, fresh-coloured old man,
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THE VIRGINIANS
with very protruding eyes, attired in plain, old-fashioned,
snuff-coloured clothes and brown stockings, Ms only
ornament the blue ribbon of Ms Order of the Garter. He
speaks in a German accent, but with ease, shrewdness,
and simplicity, addressing those individuals whom he has
a mind to notice, or passing on with a bow. He knew
Mr. Lambert well, w'ho had served under Ms Majesty
at Dettingen, and with his royal son in Scotland, and he
congratulated Mm good-humouredly on Ms promotion.
‘ It is not ahvays,’ his Majesty w^as pleased to say, ‘ that
w’e can do as w^e like ; but I w'as glad when, for once,
I could give myself that pleasure in your case, general ;
for my army contains no better officer as you."
The veteran blushed and bowed, deeply gratified at
this speech. Meanw^Mle, the Best of Monarchs was looking
at Sir Miles Warrington (whom Ms Majesty knew per-
fectly, as the eager recipient of all favours from all ministers),
and at the young gentleman by Ms side.
‘ Who is this ? ’ the Defender of the Faith condescended
to ask, pointing towards George Warrington, w^ho stood
before his sovereign in a respectful attitude, clad in poor
Harry’s best embroidered suit.
With the deepest reverence Sir Miles informed Ms king,
that the young gentleman was Ms nephew, Mr. George
Warrington of Virginia, w’ho asked leave to pay Ms humble
duty.
‘ TMs, then, is the other brother ? " the Venerated Prince
deigned to observe. ‘ He came in time, else the other
brother would have spent all the money. My Lord Bishop
of Salisbury, why do you come out in tMs bitter weather ?
You had much better stay at home ! ’ and with this, the
revered wielder of Britannia’s sceptre passed on to other
lords and gentlemen of Ms Court. Sir Miles Warrington was
deeply affected at the royal condescension. He clapped
his nephew'-’s hands. ‘ God bless you, my boy,’ he cried ;
' I told you that you w'’ould see the greatest monarch
and the &iest gentleman in the world. Is he not so, my
lord bishop ? ’
‘ That, that he is ! ’ cried Ms lordsMp, clasping Ms
ruffled hands and turning Ms fine eyes up to the sky, ‘ the
best of princes and of men.’
‘ That is Master Louis, my Lady Yarmouth’s favourite
nephew,’ says Lambert, pointing to a young gentleman
WE DO WHAT CATS MAY DO
599
who stood with a crowd round him ; and presently the
stout Duke of Cumberland came up to our little group.
His royal highness held out his hand to his old com-
panion in arms. ‘ Congratulate you on your promotion,
Lambert,’ he said, good-naturedly. Sir Miles Warrington’s
eyes w^ere ready to burst out of his head with rapture.
‘ I ow’e it, sir, to your royal highness’s good offices,’ said
the grateful general.
‘ Not at all ; not at all : ought to have had it a long
time before. Always been a good officer ; perhaps there’ll
be some employment for you soon. This is the gentleman
whom James Wolfe introduced to me.’
‘ His brother, sir.’
‘ Oh, the real fortunate youth ! You w'ere with poor
Ned Braddock in America — a, prisoner, and lucky enough
to escape. Come and see me, sir, in Pall Mall. Bring him
to my lev6e, Lambert ; ’ and the broad back of the royal
prince w^as turned to our friends.
‘ It is raining ! You came on foot, General Lambert ?
You and George must come home in my coach. You must
and shall come home with me, I say. By George you
must ! I’ll have no denial,’ cried the enthusiastic baronet ;
and he drove George and the general back to Hill Street,
and presented the latter to my Lady Warrington and his
darlings, Flora and Dora, and insisted upon their partaking
of a collation, as they must be hungry after their ride.
‘ What, there is only cold mutton ? Well, an old soldier
can eat cold mutton. And a good glass of my Lady
Warrington’s own cordial, prepared with her own hands,
will keep the cold wind out. Delicious cordial ! Capital
mutton I Our own, my dear general,’ says the hospitable
baronet, ‘ our own from the country, six years old if a day.
We keep a plain table ; but all the Warringtons since
the Conqueror have been remarkable for their love of
mutton ; and our meal may look a little scanty, and is, for
we are plain people, and I am obliged to keep my rascals
of servants on board-wages. Can’t give them seven-year-
old mutton, you know.’
Sir Miles, in his nephew’s presence and hearing, described
to his wife and daughters George’s reception at Court in
such flattering terms that George hardly knew himself,
or the scene at w^hich he had been present, or how^ to look
his uncle in the face, or how to contradict him before his
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THE VIRGINIANS
family in the midst of the astonishing narrative he was
relating. Lambert sat by for a while with open eyes.
He, too, had been at Kensington. He had seen none of
the wonders which Sir IVIiles described.
‘ We are prond of you, dear George. We love you, my
dear nephew — we all love you, we are all proud of you — ’
‘ Yes ; but I like Harry best,’ says a little voice.
‘ — ^Not because you are wealthy ! Screwby, take Master
3Iiles to his governor. Go, dear child. Not because
you are blest with great estates and an ancient name ; but
because, George, you have put to good use the talents
with which Heaven has adorned you : because you have
fought and bled in your country’s cause, in your monarch’s
cause, and as such are indeed worthy of the favour of the
best of sovereigns. General Lambert, you have kindly
condescended to look in on a country family, and partake
of our unpretending meal. I hope we may see you some
day when our hospitality is a little less homely. Yes, by
George, general, you must and shall name a day when you
and Mrs. Lambert, and your dear girls, will dine with us. I’ll
take no refusal now, by George, I won’t,’ bawls the knight.
‘ You will accompany us, I trust, to my drawing-room ? ’
says my lady, rising.
Mr. Lambert pl^wied to be excused ; but the ladies on
no account would let dear George go away. No, positively,
he should not go. They wanted to make acquaintance with
their cousin. They must hear about that dreadful battle
and escape from the Indians. Tom Claypool came in and
heard some of the story. Hora was listening to it with
her handkerchief to her eyes, and little Miles had just said :
‘ Why do you take, your handkerchief. Flora ? You’re
not crying a bit.’
Being a man of great humour, Martin Lambert, when he
went home, could not help entertaining his wife with an
account of the new^ family with which he had made acquaint-
ance. A certain cant w’ord called humbug had lately
come into vogue. Will it be believed that the general
used it to designate the family of this virtuous country
gentleman? He described the eager hospitalities of the
father, the pompous flatteries of the mother, and the
daughters’ looks of admiration ; the toughness and scarcity
of the mutton, and the abominable taste and odour of the
cordial ; and we may be sure Mrs, Lambert contrasted
WE DO WHAT CATS MAY DO
603
Lady Warrington’s recent behaviour to poor Harry vith
her present conduct to Geoige.
* Is this Miss Warrington really handsome ? ’ asks
Mrs. Lambert.
‘ Yes ; she is very handsome indeed, and the most
astounding flirt I have ever set eyes on,’ replies the general.
‘ The hypocrite I I have no patience with such people ! ’
cries the lady.
To which the general, strange to say, only replied by
the monosyllable ‘ Bo ! ’
‘ Why do you say Bo ! ” Martin ? ’ asks the lady.
‘ I say “ Bo ! ” to a goose, my dear,’ answers the general.
And his wife vows she does not know what he means,
or of what he is thinking, and the general says :
‘ Of course not.’
CHAPTER LIX
IN WHICH WE ABE TBBATED TO A PLAY
HE real business of
life, I fancy, can form
but little portion of
the novelist’s budget.
When he is speaking
of the profession of
arms, in which men
can show courage or
the reverse, and in
treating of which the
writer naturally has to
deal with interesting
circumstances, actions,
and characters, in-
troducing recitals of
danger, deyotedness,
heroic death’s, and the
like, the novelist may
perhaps venture to deal
with actual affairs of
life : but otherwise,
they scarcely can enter into our stories. The main part
604
TEE VIRGINIANS
of Piculnus’s life, for instance, is spent in selling sugar,
spices, and cheese ; of Causidicus’s in poring over musty
volumes of blackletter law ; of Sartorius’s in sitting, cross-
legged, on a board after measuring gentlemen for coats and
breeches. What can a story-teller say about the pro-
fessional existence of these men V Would a real rustical
liistory of hobnails and eighteenpence a day be endurable V
In the days whereof we are WTiting, the poets of the time
chose to represent a shepherd in pink breeches and a
chintz waistcoat, dancing before his flocks, and playing a
flageolet tied up with a blue satin ribbon. I say, in reply
to some objections which have been urged by potent and
friendly critics, that of the actual affairs of life the novel-
ist cannot be expected to treat — with the almost single
exception of war before named. But law, stockbroking,
polemical theology, linen-drapery, apothecary business, and
the like, how can writers manage fully to develop these
in their stories ? All authors can do, is to depict men out
of their business — ^in their passions, loves, laughters, amuse-
ments, hatreds, and what not — and describe these as well
as they can, taking the business part for granted, and
leaving it as it were for subaudition.
Thus, in talking of the present or the past W'orld, I know
I am only dangling about the theatre-lobbies, coffee-houses,
ridottos, pleasure haunts, fair-booths, and feasting- and
fiddling-rooms of life ; that, meanwhile, the great serious
past or present world is plodding in its chambers, toiling at
its humdrum looms, or jogging on its accustomed labours,
and w^e are only seeing our characters away from their work.
Corydon has to cart the litter and thresh the barley, as
well as to make love to Phillis ; Ancillula has to dress
and w’ash the nursery, to wait at breakfast and on her
misses, to take the children out, &c., before she can have
her brief sweet interview through the area-railings with
Boopis, the policeman. All day long have his heels to
beat the stale pavement before he has the opportunity
to snatch the hasty kiss or the furtive cold pie. It is only
at moments, and away from these labours, that we can
light upon one character or the other ; and hence, though
most of the persons of whom we are writing have doubtless
their grave employments and avocations, it is only w^hen
they ^ disengaged and away from their work, that we
can bring them and the equally disengaged reader together.
WE ABE TREATED TO A PLAY 605
The macaronis and fine gentlemen at White’s and Arthur’s
continued to show poor Harry Warrington such a very
cold shoulder, that he sought their society less and less,
and the Ring and the Mail and the gaming-table knew
him no more. Madame de Bernstein was for her nephew’s
braving the indifference of the world, and vowed that it
would be conquered, if he would but have courage to face
it ; but the young man was too honest to wear a smiling
face when he was discontented ; to disguise mortification
or anger ; to parry slights by adroit flatteries or cunning
impudence ; as many gentlemen and gentlewomen must
and do who v^ish to succeed in society.
‘ You pull a long face, Harry, and complain of the world’s
treatment of you,’ the old lady said. ‘ Fiddlededee, sir !
Everybody has to put up with impertinences ; and if you
get a box on the ear now you are poor and cast down, you
must say nothing about it, bear it with a smile, and if you
can, revenge it ten years after. Moi qui vous parh, sir 1 —
do you suppose I have had no humble pie to eat ? All of us
in our turn are called upon to swallow it ; and now you are
no longer the Fortunate Youth, be the Clever Youth, and
win back the place you have lost by your ill luck. Go
about more than ever. Go to all the routs and parties
to which you are asked, and to more still. Be civil to
everybody — ^to all women especially. Only of course
take care to show your spirit, of which you have plenty.
With economy, and by your brother’s, I must say, admirable
generosity, you can still make a genteel figure. With your
handsome person, sir, you can’t fail to get a rich heiress.
Temz I You should go amongst the merchants in the
City, and look out there. They won’t know that you are
out of fashion at the Court end of the town. With a little
management, there is not the least reason, sir, why you
should not make a good position for yourself still. When
did you go to see my Lady Yarmouth, pray ? Why did
you not improve that connexion ? She took a great fancy
to you. I desire you will be constant at her ladyship’s
evenings, and lose no opportunity of paying court to her.’
Thus the old woman who had loved Harry so on his first
appearance in England, who had been so eager for his
company, and pleased with his artless conversation, was
taking the side of the world, and turning against him.
Instead of the smiles and kisses with which the fickle old
606
THE VIRGINIANS
creature used once to greet him, she received him with
coldness ; she became peevish and patronizing ; she cast
jibes and scorn at him before her guests, making his honest
face flush with humiliation, and awaking the keenest
pangs of grief and amazement in his gentle, manly heart.
Madame de Bernstein’s servants, who used to treat him
with such eager respect, scarcely paid him now any attention.
My lady was often indisposed or engaged when he called
on her ; her people did not press him to ’wait ; did not
volunteer to ask w’hether he would stay and dine, as they
used in the days w’hen he was the Fortunate Youth and
companion of the wealthy and great. Harry carried his
woes to Mrs, Lambert. In a passion of sorrow he told her
of his aunt’s cruel behavimir to him. He was stricken
down and dismayed by the fickleness and heartlessness of
the world in its treatment of Mm. While the good lady
and her daughters would move to and fro, and busy them-
selves with the cares of the house, our poor lad would sit
glum in a window seat, heart-sick and silent :
‘I know you are the best people alive,’ he would say
to the ladies, * and the kindest, and that I must be the
dullest company in the world — ^yes, that I am,’
‘ Well, you are not very lively, Harry,’ says Miss Hetty,
who began to command him, and perhaps to ask herself,
‘ What ? Is this the gentleman w’hom I took to be such
a hero ? ’
‘ If he is unhappy w^hy should he be lively ? ’ asks Theo,
gently. ‘ He has a good heart, and is pained at his friends’
d^rrion of him. Sure, there is no harm in that ? ’
‘I would have too much spirit to show I was hurt, though,’
cri^ Hetty, clenching her little fists. ‘ And I would smile,
though that horrible old painted woman boxed my ears.
She is horrible, mamma. You think so yourself, Theo !
Own, now, you think so yourself ! You said so last night,
and acted her coming in on her crutch, and grinning round
to the company.’
* I mayn’t like her,’ said Theo, turning very red. ^ But
there is no reason why I should call Harry’s aunt names
before Harry’s face.’
‘ You provoking thing ; you are alw^ays right I ’ cries
Hetty, ‘and that’s what makes me so angry. Indeed,
Harry, it was very wrong of me to make rude remarks
about any of your relations.’
WE ARE TREATED TO A PLAY
607
‘ I don’t care about the others, Hetty ; but it seems
hard that this one should turn upon me. I had got to be
very fond of her ; and, you see, it makes me mad, somehow,
when people I’m very fond of turn away from me, or act
unkind to me.’
‘ Suppose George were to do so ? ’ asks Hetty. You see,
it was George and Hetty, and Theo and Harry amongst
them now.
‘ You are very clever and very lively, and you may
suppcBe a number of things ; but not that, Hetty, if you
please,’ cried Harry, standing up, and looking very resolute
and angry. ‘ You don’t know my brother as I know him —
or you wouldn’t take — ^such a — ^liberty as to suppose — my
brother George could do anything unkind or unworthy ! ’
Mr. Harry was quite in a flush as he spoke.
Hetty turned very white. Then she looked up at Harry,
and then she did not say a single word.
Then Harry said, in his simple way, before taking leave,
‘ I’m very sorry, and I beg your pardon, Hetty, if I said
anything rough, or that seemed unkind ; but I always fight
up if anybody says anything against George.’
Hetty did not answer a word out of her pale lips, but
gave him her hand, and dropped a prim little curtsy.
When she and Theo were together at night, making
curl-paper confidences, ‘ Oh,’ said Hetty, ‘ I thought it
would be so happy to see him every day, and was so glad
when papa said we were to stay in London ! And now
I do see him, you see, I go on offending him. I can’t help
offending him ; and I know he is not clever, Theo. Rut
oh ! isn’t he good, and kind, and brave ? Didn’t he look
handsome when he was angry ? ’
‘ You siUy little thing, you are always trying to make
him look handsome,’ Theo replied.
It was Theo and Hetty, and Harry and George, among
these young people, then ; and I dare say the reason wliy
General Lambert chose to apply the monosyllable ‘ Bo ’
to the mother of his daughters, was as a rebuke to that
good woman for the inveterate love of sentiment and
propensity to matchmaking which belonged to her (and
every other woman in the world whose heart is worth
a fig) ; and as a hint that Madam Lambert was a goose
if she fancied the two Virginian lads were going to fall
in love with the young women of the Lambert house.
m THE VIRGINIANS
little Het might have her fancy ; little girls will ; but
they get it over ; ‘ and you know% Molly ’ (which dear,
soft-hearted Mrs. Lambert could not deny), ‘you fancied
somebody else before you fancied me,’ says the general :
but Harry had evidently not been smitten by Hetty ; and,
now he was superseded, as it w^ere, by having an elder
brother over him, and could not even caU the coat upon
his back his oto. Master Harry was no great catch.
* Oh, yes : now he is poor we vtU show him the door,
as all the rest of the world does, I suppose,’ says Mrs.
Lambert.
* That is w'hat I always do, isn’t it, MoUy ? turn my
back on my friends in distress ? ’ asks the general.
^ No, my dear ! I am a goose, now, and that I own,
Martin ! ’ says the wife, having recourse to the usual
pocket-handkerchief.
‘ Let the poor boy come to us, and welcome ; ours is
almost the only house in this selfish place where so much
can be said for him. He is unhappy, and to be with
us puts him at ease ; in God’s name let him be with us ! ’
says the kind-hearted oflSoer. Accordingly whenever poor
crestfallen Hal wanted a dinner, or an evening’s entertain-
ment, Mr. Lambert’s table had a comer for him. So was
George welcome, too. He went among the Lamberts,
not at first with the cordiality which Harry felt for these
people, and inspired among them : for George was colder
in Ms manner, and more mistrustful of Mmself and others
than his twin-brother : but there was a goodness and
friendliness about the family wMch touched almost aU
people who came into frequent contact with them ; and
George soon learned to love them for their own sake, as
well as for their constant regard and kindness to his brother.
He could not but see and own how sad Harry was, and pity
his brother’s depression. In Ms sarcastic way, George
would often take Mmself to task before his brother for coming
to life again, and say, ‘Bear Harry, I am George the
Unlucky, though you have ceased to be Harry the Fortunate.
Horae would have done much better not to pass Ms sword
through that Indian’s body, and to have left my scalp
as an ornament for the fellow’s belt. I say he would, sir !
At White’s the people would have respected you. Our
mother would have w^ept over me, as a defunct angel,
instead of being angry with me for again supplanting her
WE ARE TREATED TO A PLAY
609
favourite — ^yon are her favourite, you deserve to be her
favourite : everybody’s favourite : only, if I had not
come back, yovr favourite, Maria, would have insisted on
marrying you ; and that is how the gods would have
revenged themselves upon you for your prosperity.’
‘ I never know whether you are laughing at me or your-
self, George,’ says the brother. ‘I never know w^hether
you are serious or jesting.’
‘ Precisely my own case, Harry, my dear ! ’ says George.
‘ But this I know, that there never w^as a better brother
in all the world ; and never better people than the Lamberts.’
‘ Never was truer word said I ’ cries George, taking his
brother’s hand.
‘And if I’m unhappy, ’tis not your fault — ^nor their
fault — nor perhaps mine, George,’ continues the younger.
‘ ’Tis fate, you see ; ’tis the having nothing to do. I must
work ; and how, George, that is the question ? ’
‘ We will see what our mother says. We must wait till
we hear from her,’ says Geoi^.
‘ I say, Geoi^ ! Do you know, I don’t think I should
much like going back to Virginia ? ’ says Harry, in a low,
alarmed voice.
‘ What ! in love with one of the lasses here ? ’
‘Love ’em like sisters — with all my heart, of course,
dearest, best girls ! but, having come out of that business,
thanks to you, I don’t want to go back, you know. No !
no ! It is not for that I fancy staying in Europe better
than going home. But, you see, I don’t fancy hunting,
duck-shooting, tobacco-planting, whist-playing, and going
to sermon, over and over and over again for all my life,
George. And what else is there to do at home ? What on
earth is there for me to do at all, I say ? That’s what makes
me miserable. It would not matter for you to be a younger
son ; you are so clever you would make your way anywhere ;
but, for a poor fellow like me, what chance is there ? Until
I do something, George, I shall be miserable, that’s what
I shall ! ’
‘ Have I not always said so ? Art thou not coming
round to my opinion ? ’
‘ What opinion, George ? You know pretty much what-
ever you think, I think, George ! ’ says the dutiful junior.
‘ That Florae had best have left the Indian to take my
scalp, my dear ! ’
VIRGINIANS
X
610
THE VIRGINIANS
At which Harry bursts away with an angry exclamation ;
and they continue to puff their pipes in friendly union.
They lived together, each going his own gait ; and not
much intercourse, save that of affection, was carried on
between them. Harry never would venture to meddle
with George’s books, and would sit as dumb as a mouse
at the lodgings whilst his brother was studying. They re-
moved presently from the Court-end of the town, Madame
de Bernstein pishing and pshaing at their change of resi-
dence. But George took a great fancy to frequenting Sir
Hans Sloane’s new reading-room and museum, just set up in
Montagu House, and he took cheerful lodgings in South-
ampton Row, Bloomsbury, looking over the delightful
fields towards Hampstead, at the back of the Duke of
Bedford’s gardens. And Lord Wrotham’s family coming
to May Fair, and Mr. Lambert having business which
detained him in London, had to change his house, too,
and engaged furnished apartm^ts in Soho, not very far
off from the dwelling of our young men ; and it was, as we
have said, with the Lamberts that Harry, night after night,
took refuge.
George was with them often, too ; and, as the acquaint-
ance ripened, he frequented their house with increasing
assiduity, finding their company more to his taste than
that of Aunt Bernstein’s pdite circle of gamblers, than
Sbr Miles Warrington’s port and mutton, or the daily
noise and clatter of the coffee-houses. And as he and
the Lambert ladies were alike strangers in London, they
partook of its pleasures together, and, no doubt, went
to VauxhaJl and Eanelagh, to Marybone Gardens, and
the j^ay, and the Tower, and wherever else there was
honest amusement to be had in those days. Martin
Lambert loved that bis children should have all the innocent
pleasure which he could procure for them, and Mr. George,
who was of a_ most generous, open-handed disposition,
liked to treat his friends likewise, especially those who had
been so admirably kind to his brother.
With all the passion of his heart Mr. Warrington loved
a play. He had never enjoyed this amusement in Virginia,
and cmly once or twice at Quebec, when he visited Canada ;
and when he came to Ijondon, where the two houses were
in th^ full ^ory, I believe he thought he never could
have enough of the delightful entertainment. Anything
WE ARE TREATED TO A PLAY
611
he liked himself, he naturally wished to share amongst
his companions. No w^onder that he was eager to take
his friends to the theatre, and w'e may be sure our young
country folks were not unwilling. Shall it be Drury Lane
or Covent Garden, ladies ? There w^as Garrick and Shake-
speare at Drury Lane. Well, will it be believed, ibe
l^ies w^anted to hear the famous new author whose piece
was being played at Covent Garden ?
At this time a star of genius had arisen, and was blazing
with quite a dazzling brilliancy. The great Mr. John
Home, of Scotland, had product a trag^y, than which,
since the days of the ancients, there had been nothing
more classic and elegant. What had Mr. Garrick meant
by refusing such a masterpiece for his theatre ? Say what
you willal^ut Shakespeare; in the works of that undoubted
great poet (who had begun to grow vastly more popular
in En^and since Monsieur Voltaire attacked him), there
were many barbarisms that could not but shock a polite
auditory ; whereas, Mr. Home, the modem author, knew
how to be refined in the very midst of grief and passion ;
to represent death, not merely as awful, but graceful and
pathetic ; and never condescended to degrade the majesty
of the Tragic Muse by the ludicrous apposition of buffoonery
and familiar punning, such as the elder playwright certainly
had resort to. Besides, Mr. Home’s performance had been
admired in quarters so high, and by personages whose
taste was known to be as elevated as their rank, that all
Britons could not but join in the plaudits for which august
hands had given the signal. Such, it was said, was the
opinion of the very best company, in the coffee-houses,
and amongst the wits about town. Why, the famous Mr.
Gray, of Cambridge, said there had not been for a hundred
years any dramatic dialogue of such a true style ; and as
for the poet’s native capital of Edinburgh, where the piece
w^as first brought out, it was even said that the triumphant
Scots called out from the pit (in their dialect), ‘ Where’s
WuHy Shakespeare noo ? ’
‘I should like to see the man who could beat Willy
Shakespeare,’ says the general, laughing.
‘ Mere national prejudice,’ says Mr. Warrington.
" Beat Shakespeare, indeed ! ’ cries Mrs. Lambert.
" Pooh, pooh ! you have cried more over Mr. Sam Richard-
son, than ever you did over Mr. Shakespeare, Molly ! ’
612
THE VIRGINIANS
remarks the generaL * I think few women love to read
Shakespeare : they say they love it, but they don’t/
‘ Oh, papi 1 ’ cry three ladies, throwing up three pair
of hands.
‘Weil, then, why do you all three prefer Dovglas? And
you boys, who are such Tories, wiU you go see a play
winch is wrote by a Wliig Scotchman, who was actually
made prisoner at Falkirk ? ”
‘ Bdicia non bene parmvla,^ says Mr. Jack the scholar.
‘ Nay ; it was rdicta bene jiarmvla,'* cried the generaL
*It w^as the Highlanders who flung their targes dowm,
and made fierce w^ork among us red-coats. If they had
fought all their fields as well as that, and young Perkin
had not turned back from Derby ’
*I know which side would be rebels, and who would
be called the Young Pretender,’ interposed Oeorge.
‘ Hush ! you must please to remember my cloth, Mr.
Warrington,’ said the general, with some gravity ; ^ and
that the cockade I wear is a black, not a white one ! WeU,
if you win not love Mr. Home for his politics, there is,
I think, another reason, Greorge, why you should like him.’
‘ I may have Tory fancies, Mr. lambert ; but I think
I know how to love and honour a good Whig,’ said George,
with a bow to the general : ‘ and why should I like this
Mr. Home, sir ? ’
‘ Because, being a Presbyterian clergyman, he has
committed the heinous crime of writing a play, and his
brother parsons have barked out an excommunication
at him. They took the poor fellow’s means of livelihood
away from him for his performance ; and he would have
starved, but that the young Pretender on our side of the
water has given him a pension.’
‘ E he has been persecuted by the parsons there is hope
for him,’ says George, smiling. ‘ And henceforth I declare
myself ready to hear his sermons.’
‘Mrs. Woffington is divine in it, though not generally
famous in trag^y. Barry is drawing tears from all eyes ;
and Garrick is wild at having refused the piece. Girls,
you must bring each half a dozen handkerchiefs I As for
mamma, I cannot trust her ; and she positively must be
left at home.’
But mamma persisted she would go ; and, if need were
to weep, she would sit and cry her eyes out in a corner.
WE ARE TREATED TO A PLAY
613
They all went to Covent Garden, then ; the most of the
party duly prepared to see one of the masterpieces of the
age and drama. Could they not all speak long pages of
Cbngreve ; had they not wept and kindled over Otway
and Rowe ? 0 ye past literary glories, that were to be
eternal, how long have you been dead ? Who knows
much more now than where your graves are ? Poor
neglected Muse of the bygone theatre ! She pipes for us,
and we will not dance ; she tears her hair, and w^e will
not weep. And the Immortals of our time, how soon
shall they be dead and buried, think you ? How many
will survive ? How long shall it be ere Nox et Domus
Plutonia shall overtake them ?
So away went the pleased party to Covent Garden to
see the tragedy of the immortal John Home. The ladies
and the general were conveyed in a glass coach, and found
the young men in waiting to receive them at the theatre
door. Hence they elbowed their way through a crowd
of torch-boys, and a whole regiment of footmen. Little
Hetty fell to Harry’s arm in this expedition, and the blushing
Miss Theo was handed to the box by Mr. George. Gumbo
had kept the places until his masters arrived, when he
retired, with many bows, to take his own seat in the foot-
man’s gallery. They had good places in a front box, and
there was luckily a pillar behind which mamma could weep
in comfort. And opposite them they had the honour to
see the august hope of the empire, his royal highness
George Prince of Wales, with the princess dowager his
mother, whom the people greeted with loyal, but not
very enthusiastic, plaudits. That handsome man standing
behind his royal highness was my Lord Bute, the prince’s
groom of the stole, the patron of the poet whose performance
they had come to see, and over whose work the royal party
had already wept more than once.
How can we help it if, during the course of the per-
formance, Mr. Lambert would make his jokes and mar
the solemnity of the scene ? At first, as the reader of the
tragedy w^ell knows, the characters are occupied in making
a number of explanations. Lady Randolph explains how
it is that she is so melancholy. Married to Lord Randolph
somewhat late in life, she owns, and his lordship perceives,
that a dead lover yet occupies all her heart, and her husband
is fain to put up with this dismal, second-hand regard,
6i4
THE VIKGINIANS
which is all that my lady can bestow. Hence, an invasion
of Scotland by the Danes is rather a cause of excitement
than disgust to my lord, who rushes to meet the foe, and
forget the dreariness of his domestic circumstances. Wel-
come Vikings and Norsemen ! Blow, northern blasts,
the invaders’ keels to Scotland’s shore ! Eandolph and
other heroes will be on the beach to give the foemen a
welcome ! His lordship has no sooner ^sappeared behind
the trees of the forest, but Lady Randolph begins to explain
to her confidante the circumstances of her early life. The
fact w^as she had made a private marriage, and w’hat would
the confidante say, if, in early youth, she, Lady Randolph,
had lost a husband ? In the cold bosom of the earth
w^as lodged the husband of her youth, and in some cavern
of the ocean lies her child and his I
Up to this the general behaved with as great gravity
as any of his young companions to the play, but when
Lady Randolph proceeded to say, * Alas I Hereditary evil
was the cause of my misfortunes,’ he nudged George War-
rington, and looked so droll, that the young man burst out
laughing.
The magic of the scene was destroyed after that. These
two gentlem^ went on cracking jokes during the whole
of the sul^equent performance, to their own amusement,
but the indignation of their company, and perhaps of the
people in the adjacent boxes. Young Douglas, in those
dajTS, used to wear a white satin ‘ shape ’ slashed at the
legs and body, and when Mr. Barry appeared in his ^ droll
co^ume, the general vowed it was the exact dress of the
Highlanders in the late war. The Chevalier’s Guard, he
declared, had all white satin slashed breeches, and red
boots — ‘ only they left them at home, my dear,’ adds
this wag. Not one pennyworth of sublimity would he or
George allow henceforth to Mr. Home’s performance.
As for Harry, he sat in very deep meditation over the
scene ; and when Mrs. Lambert offered him a penny for
hm thoughts, he said, ‘ That he thought, Young Norval,
Douglas, What-d’ye-call-’em, the fellow in white satin —
who looked as old as his mother — was very lucky to be
able to distinguish himself so soon. I wish I could get
a chance, Aunt Lambert,’ says he, drumming on his hat ;
on which mamma sighed, and Theo, smiling, said, ‘We
must wait, and perhaps the Danes will land.’
WE ABE TREATED TO A PLAY
615
* How do you mean V ’ asks simple Harry.
* Oh ! the Danes always land, pour qui sgait attendre I ’
says kind Theo, w^ho had hold of her sister’s little band,
and, I dare say, felt its pressure.
She did not behave unkindly — ^that was not in Miss
Theo’s nature — but somewhat coldly to Mr. George, on
whom she turned her back, addressing remarks, from time
to time, to Harry. In spite of the gentlemen’s scorn,
the wnmen chose to be affected. A mother and son,
meeting in love and parting in tears, will always awaken
emotion in female hearts.
‘ Look, papa ! there is an answ^er to all your jokes ! ’
says Theo, pointing towards the stage.
At a part of the dialogue between Lady Randolph and
her son, one of the grenadiers on guard on each side of the
stage, as the custom of those days was, could not restrain
his tears, and was visibly weeping before the side-box.
‘ You are right, my dear,’ says papa.
* Didn’t I tell you she always is ? ’ interposes Hetty.
‘ Yonder sentry is a better critic than we are, and a touch
of nature masters us all.’
* Tamen usque recurrit I ’ cries the young student from
college.
George felt abashed somehow and interested, too. He
had been sneering, and Theo sympathizing. Her kindness
was better — ^nay, wiser — ^than his scepticism, perhaps.
Nevertheless, when, at the beginning of the fifth act of
the play, young Douglas, drawing his sword and looking
up at the gallery, bawled out —
* Ye glorious stars ! high Heaven’s resplendent host *
To whom I oft have of my lot complained.
Hear and record my soul’s unaltered wish :
Living or dead, let me but be renowned !
May Heaven inspire some fierce gigantic Dane
To give a bold defiance to our host !
Before he speaks it out, I will accept, —
Like Douglas conquer, or like Douglas die ! ’
— ^the gods, to whom Mr. Barry appealed, saluted this
heroic wish with immense applause, and the general clapped
his hands prodigiously. His daughter was rather dis-
concerted.
‘ This Douglas is not only brave, but he is modest ! ’
says papa.
616
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ I ora I think he need not have asked for a gigantic
Dane,’ says Theo, smiling, as Lady Randolph entered
in the midst of the gallery-thunder.
When the applause had subsided, Lady Randolph is
made to say —
‘ My son, I heard a voice ! ’
* I think she did hear a voice ! ’ cries papa. ‘ Why, the
fellow was bellowing like a bull of Basan.’ And the general
would scarcely- behave himself from thenceforth to the
end of the performance. He said he was heartily glad
that the young gentleman w’as put to death behind the
scenes. When I^idy Randolph’s friend described how her
mistress had ‘ flown like lightning up the hill, and plunged
herself into the empty air’, Mr. Lambert said he was de-
lighted to be rid of her. ‘ And as for that story of her
early marriage,’ says he, ‘I have my very strongest
doubts about it.’
* Nonsense, Martin I Look, children ! Their royal high'
nesses are moving.’
The tragedy over, the princess dowager and the prince
were, in fact, retiring ; though, I dare say, the latter, who
was always fond of a farce, would have been far better
pleased with that which followed, than he had been with
Mr. Home’s dreary tragic masterpiece.
617
CHAPTER LX
WHICH TREATS OF MACBETH, A SUPPER, AND A PRETTY KETTLE
OF USH
HEN the performances
were concluded, our
friends took coach
for Mr. Warrington’s
lodging, where the
Virginians had pro-
vided an elegant sup-
per. Mr. Warrington
was eager to treat
them in the hand-
somest manner, and
the general and his
wife accepted the in-
vitation of the two
bachelors, pleased to
think that they could
give their young friends pleasure. General and Mrs.
Lambert, their son from college, their two blooming
daughters, and Mr. Spencer of the Temjde, a new friend
whom George had met at the coffee-house, formed the
party, and partook with cheerfulness of the landlady’s
fare. The order of their sitting I have not been able
exactly to ascertain; but, somehow, Miss Theo had a
place next to the chickens and Mr. George Warrington,
whilst Miss Hetty and a ham divided the attentions of
Mr. Harry. Mrs. Lambert micst have been on George’s
right hand, so that we have but to settle the three places
of the general, his son, and the Templar.
Mr. Spencer had been at the other theatre, where, on
a former day, he had actually introduced George to the
green-room. The conversation about the play was resumed,
and some of the party persisted in being delighted with it.
‘ As for what our gentlemen say, sir,’ cries Mrs. Lambert
to Mr. Spencer, ‘ you must not believe a word of it. ’Tis
a delightful piece, and my husband and Mr. George behaved
as ill as possible.’
X 3
618
THE VIRGINIANS
* We laughed in the ’WTong place, and when w^e ought
to have cri^/ the general ovraed, ‘ that’s the truth.’
‘ You cau^ all the people in the boxes about us to
look round, and cry “Hush!” You made the pit folks
say, “ Silence in the boxes yonder ! ” Such behaviour
I never knew, and quite blushed for you, Mr. I^ambert I ’
‘ Mamma thought it was a tragedy, and we thought it
was a juece of fun,’ says the general. ‘George and I
behaved perfectly well, didn’t we, Theo ? ’
‘ Not w’hen I was looking your way, papa ! ’ Theo replies.
At which the general asks, ‘ Was there ever such a saucy
baggage seen ? ’
‘You know, sir, I didn’t speak till I wras bid,’ Theo
continues, modestly. ‘I owm I was very much moved
by the ]^y, and the beauty and acting of Mrs. Woffington.
I was son^ that the poor mother should find her child,
and lose him. I am sorry too, papa, if I oughtn’t to have
been sorry ! ’ adds the young lady, with a smile.
‘ Women are not so clever as men, you know, Theo ! ’
cries Hetty from her end of the table, wdth a sly look at
Harry. ‘ The next time w^e go to the play, please, brother
Jack, pinch us when w^e ought to cry, or give us a nudge
when it is right to laugh.’
* I. wish we could have had the fight,’ said General
Lambert — ‘ the fight between little Norval and the gigantic
Nor\i^egian — that would have been rare sport : and you
should wTite, Jack, and suggest it to Mr. Rich, the manager! ’
‘ I have not seen that : but I saw Slack and Broughton
at Marybone Gardens ! ’ says Harry, gravely ; and wondered
if he had said something witty, as aU the company laughed
so. ‘ It would require no giant,’ he added, ‘ to knock
over yonder little fellow in the red boots. I, for one,
could throw him over my shoulder.’
‘ Mr. Garrick is a little man. But there are times when
he looks a giant,’ s&js Mr. Spencer. ‘ How grand he was
in Macbeth, Mr. Warrington ! How awiul that dagger-
scene w^as ! You should have seen our host, ladies !
I presented Mr. Warrington in the green-room, to Mr.
Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard, and Lady Macbeth did him
the honour to take a pinch out of his box.’
‘ Did the wife of the Thane of Cawdor sneeze ? ’ asked
the general in an awful voice.
‘ She thanked Mr. Warrington, in tones so hollow and
MACBETH, AND A SUPPER
621
tragic, that he started back, and must have upset some
of his rappee, for Macbeth sneezed thrice.’
‘ Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth ! ’ cries the general.
‘ And the great philosopher who w’as standing by, — Mr.
Johnson, says, “ You must mind, Davy, lest thy sneeze
should awaken Duncan ! ” w'ho, by the w’ay, was talking
w’ith the three witches as they sat against the w^all.’
‘ What ! Have you been behind the scenes at the play ?
Oh, I w^ould give w^orlds to go behind the scenes ! ’ cries
Theo.
‘ And see the ropes pulled, and smell the tallow candles,
and look at the pasteboard gold, and the tinsel jew^els,
and the painted old women, Theo ? No. Do not look
too close,’ says the sceptical young host, demurely drinking
a glass of hock. ‘ You w^ere angry with your papa and me.’
‘ Nay, George I ’ cries the girl.
‘ Nay ? I say, yes I You were angry with us because
we laughed when you were disposed to be crying. If I
may speak for you, sir, as well as myself,’ says George
(with a bow to his guest, General Lambert), ‘ I think
we were not inclined to weep, like the ladies, because
we stood behind the author’s scenes of the play, as it were.
Looking close up to the young hero, we saw how much of
him was rant and tinsel ; and as for the pale, tragical mother,
that her pallor was white chalk, and her grief her pocket-
handkerchief. Own now, Theo, you thought me very
unfeeling ? ’
‘ If you find it out, sir, without my owning it, — what
is the good of my confessing ? ’ says Theo.
‘ Suppose I were to die ? ’ goes on George, ' and you
saw Harry in grief, you would be seeing a genuine affliction,
a real tragedy ; you would grieve too. But you wouldn’t
be affected if you saw the undertaker in weepers and a
black cloak I ’
‘ Indeed, but I should, sir ! ’ says Mrs. Lambert ; * and
so, I promise you, wnuld any daughter of mine.’
‘ Perhaps w^e might find weepers of our own, Mr. Warring-
ton,’ says Theo, ‘ in such a case.’
‘ Would you ! ’ cries George, and his cheeks and Theo’s
simultaneously flushed up with red ; I suppose because
they both saw Hetty’s bright young eyes watching them.
‘ The elder writers understood but little of the pathetic,
remarked Mr. Spencer, the Temple wit.
622
THE VIRGINIANS
* What do you think of Sophocles and Antigone ? ’ calls
out Mr. John Lambert.
‘Faith, our wits trouble themselves little about him,
unless an Oxford gentleman comes to remind us of him !
I did not mean to go back further than Mr. Shakespeare,
who, as you will ah agree, does not understand the elegant
and pathetic as wellas the moderns. Has he ever approached
Belvidera, or Monimia, or Jane Shore ; or can you find
in his comic female characters the elegance of Congreve ? ’
and the Templar offered snuff to the right and left.
‘ I think ]yfr. Spencer himself must have tried his hand ? ’
asks some one.
‘ Many gentlemen of leisure have. Mr. Garrick, I own,
has had a piece of mine, and returned it.’
‘ And I confess that I have four acts of a play in one of
my boxes,’ says George.
‘ Fll be bound to say it’s as good as any of ’em,’ whispers
Harry to his neighbour.
‘ Is it a tragedy or a comedy ? ’ asks Mrs. Lambert.
‘ Oh, a tragedy, and two or three dreadful murders
at least ! ’ George replies.
‘ Let us play it, and let the audience look to their eyes !
Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant,’ says the general.
‘ The tragedy, the tragedy ! Go and fetch the tragedy
this moment, Gumbo I ’ calls Mrs. Lambert to the black.
Gumbo makes a low bow and says, ‘ Tragedy ? yes,
madam.’
* In the great cowskin trunk. Gumbo,’ George says,
gravely.
Gumbo bows and says, ‘ Yes, sir,’ with still superior
gravity.
‘ But my tragedy is at the bottom of I don’t know how
much linen, packages, books, and boots, Hetty.’
‘ Never mind, let us have it, and fling the linen out of
window ! ’ cries Miss Hetty.
‘ And the great cow^skin trunk is at our agent’s at Bristol :
so Gumbo must get post-horses, and we can keep it up till
he returns the day after to-morrow,’ says George.
The ladies groaned a comical Oh ! and papa, perhaps
more seriously, said : ‘ Let us be thankful for the escape.
Let us be tliinking of going home too. Our young gentle-
men have treated us nobly, and w^e will aU drink a parting
bumper to Madam Esmond Warrington of Castlewood, in
A PRETTY KETTLE OP FISH
623
Virginia. Suppose, boys, you were to find a tall, hand-
some stepfather when you got home ? Ladies as old as
she have been known to marry before now.’
‘ To Madam Esmond Warrington, my old schoolfellow ! ’
cries Mrs. Lambert. ‘ I shall write and tell her what a
pretty supper her sons have given us : and, Mr. George,
I won’t say how ill you behaved at the play ! ’ And, with
this laat toast, the company took leave; the general’s
coach and servant, with a flambeau, being in waiting to
carry his family home.
After such an entertainment as that which Mr. War-
rington had given, what could be more natural or proper
than a visit from him to his guests, to inquire how they
had reached home and rested ? Why, their coach might
have taken the open country behind Montagu House,
in the direction of Oxford Road, and been waylaid by
footpads in the fields. The ladies might have caught cold
or slept ill after the excitement of the tragedy. In a word,
there was no reason why he should make any excuse at all
to himself or them for visiting his kind friends ; and he
shut his books early at the Sloane Museum, and perhaps
thought, as he walked away thence, that he remembered
very little about what he had been reading.
Pray what is the meaning of this eagerness, this hesitation,
this pshaing and shilly-shallying, these doubts, this tremor
as he knocks at the door of Mr. Lambert’s lodgings in
Dean Street, and surveys the footman who comes to his
summons ? Does any young man read ? does any old
one remember ? does any wearied, worn, disappointed
pulseless heart recall the time of its full beat and early
throbbing ? It is ever so many hundred years since some
of us were young ; and we forget, but do not all forget.
No, madam, w^e remember with advantages, as Shakespeare’s
Harry promised his soldiers they should do if they survived
Agincourt and that day of St. Crispin. Worn old chargers
turned out to grass, if the trumpet sounds over the hedge,
may we not kick up our old heels, and gallop a minute or
so about the paddock, till we are brought up roaring ?
I do not care for clowm and pantaloon now, and think
the fairy ugly, and her verses insufferable : but I like to
see children at a pantomime. I do not dance, or eat supper
any more; but I like to watch Eugenio and Flirtilla
624
THE VIRGINIANS
twirling round in a pretty waltz, or Lucinda and Ardentio
pulling a cracker. Burn your little fingers, children!
Blaze out little kindly flames from each other’s eyes !
And then draw^ close together and read the motto (that old
namby-pamby motto, so stale and so new !) — I say, let
her lips read it, and his construe it ; and so divide the
sweetmeat, young people, and crunch it between you.
I have no teeth. Bitter almonds and sugar disagree with
me, I tell you : but, for aU that, shall not bon-bons melt
in the mouth ?
We follow John upstairs to the general’s apartments,
and enter with Mr. George Esmond Warrington, who
makes a prodigious fine bow. There is only one lady in
the room, seatSi near a window : there is not often much
sunshine in Bean Street ; the young lady in the window
is no special beauty : but it is spring-time, and she is
blooming vernally. A bunch of fresh roses is flushing in
her cheek. I suppose her eyes are violets. If we lived
a hundred years ago, and wrote in the OeTiUeman^s or the
London Magasdfie, we should tell Mr. Sylvanus Urban
that her neck was the lily, and her shape the nymph’s ;
we should write an acrostic about her, and celebrate our
Lambertdla in an elegant poem, still to be read between
a neat new engraved plan of the city of Prague and the
King of Prusma’s camp, and a map of Maryland and the
Delaware counties.
Here is Miss Theo blushing like a rose. What could
mamma have meant an hour since by insisting that she
was very pale and tired, and had best not come out to-day
with the rest of the party ? They were gone to pay their
compliments to my Lord Wrotham’s ladies, and thank
them for the house in their absence ; and papa was at
the Horse Guards. He is in great spirits. I believe he
expects some command, though mamma is in a sad tremor
lest he should again be ordered abroad.
‘ Your brother and mine are going to see our little
brother at his school at the Chartreux. My brothers are
both to be clergymen, I think,’ Miss Theo continues.
She is assiduously hemming at some article of boyish
wearing apparel as she talks. A hundred years ago, young
ladies were not afraid either to make shirts, or to name them.
Mind, I don’t say they were the worse or the better for that
I^ain stitching or plain speaking : and have not the least
A PRETTY KETTLE OP PISH
desire, my dear young lady, that you should make puddings
or I should black boots.
So Harry has been with them ? ‘ He often comes, almost
every day,’ Theo says, looking up in George’s face. ‘ Poor
fellow I He likes us better than the fine folks, who don’t
care for him now — ^now he is no longer a fine folk himself,’
adds the girl, smiling. ‘ Why have you not set up for the
fashion, and frequented the chocolate-houses and the race-
courses, Mr. Waa:rington ? ’
" Has my brother got so much good out of his gay haunts
or his grand friends, that I should imitate him ? ’
‘ You might at least go to Sir Miles Warrington ; sure
his arms are open to receive you. Her ladyship was here
this morning in her chair, and to hear her praises of you !
She declares you are in a certain way to preferment. She
says his roy^ highness the duke made much of you at
Court. When you are a great man will you forget us,
Mr. Warrington ? ’
‘ Yes, when I am a great man I will, Miss Lambert.’
* Well ! Mr. George, then ’
* Mr, George ! ’
^ When papa and mamma are here, I suppose there need
be no mistering,’ says Theo, looking out of the window, ever
so little frightened. ‘ And what have you been doing,
sir ? Reading books, or writing more of your tragedy ?
Is it going to be a tragedy to make us cry, as we like them,
or only to frighten us, as you like them ? ’
‘ There is plenty of killing, but, I fear, not much crying.
I have not met many women. I have not been very
intimate with those. I dare say what I have written is
only taken out of books or parodied from poems which
I have read and imitated like other young men. Women
do not speak to me, generally ; I am said to have a sar-
castic way which displeases them.’
‘ Perhaps you never cared to please them ? ’ inquires
Miss Theo, with a blush.
* I displeased you last night ; you know I did ? ’
‘ Yes ; only it can’t be called displeasure, and after-
wards I thought I was wrong.’
‘ Did you think about me at all when I w^as away, Theo ? ’
^ Yes, George — ^that is, Mr. — ^w^ell, George ! I thought
you and papa w^ere right about the play ; and, as you said,
that it was not real sorrow^ only afiectation, which was
626
THE VIRGINIANS
moving us. I wonder whether it is good or ill fortune to
see so clearly ? Hetty and I agreed that we would be
very careful, for the future, how we allowed ourselves to
enjoy a tragedy. So be careful when yours comes ?
What is the name of it ? ’
" He is not cliristened. Will you be the godmother ?
The name of the chief character is ’ But at this very
moment mamma and Miss Hetty arrived from their walk ;
and mamma straightway began protesting that she never
expected to see Mr. Warrington at all that day — ^that is,
she thought he might come — ^that is, it was very good of
Ixim to come, and the play and the supper of yesterday
were all charming, except that Theo had a little headache
this morning.
‘ I dare say it is better now, mamma,’ says Miss Hetty.
‘ Indeed, my dear, it never was of any consequence ;
and I told mamma so,’ says Miss Theo, with a toss of her
head.
Then they fell to talking about Harry. He was very
low\ He must have something to do. He was always
going to the Military Coffee-house, and perpetually poring
over the King of Rush’s campaigns. It was not fair
upcm him, to bid him remain in London, after his deposition,
as it were. He said nothing, but you could see how he
Fretted his previous useless life, and felt his present
dependence, by the manner in which he avoided his former
haunts and associates. Passing by the guard at St. J ames’s,
with John Lambert, he had said to brother Jack, ^ Why
mayn’t I be a soldier, too ? I am as tall as yonder fellow,
and can kill with a fowling-jMece as well as any man I know.
But I can’t earn so much as sixpence a day. I have
squandered my own bread, and now I am eating half my
brother’s. He is the best of brothers, but so much the
more shame that I should live upon him. Don’t tell my
brother, Jack Lambert.’ ‘ And my boy promised he
woMnH tell,’ says Mrs. Lambert. No doubt. The
girls were both out of the room when their mother made
this speech to George Warrington. He, for his part, said
he had written home to his mother — that half his little
patrimony, the other half likewise, if wanted, were at
Harry’s disposal, for purchasing a commission, or for any
other project which might bring him occupation or
advancement.
A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH
627
^ He has got a good brother, that is sure. Let us hope for
good times for him,’ sighs the lady.
‘ The Danes always come 'pour qui sgait aUendre,^ George
said, in a low voice.
‘ What, you heard that ? Ah, George ! my Theo is
an Ah ! never mind what she is, George Warrington,’
cried the pleased mother, with brimful eyes. ‘ Bah ! I am
going to make a gaby of myself, as I did at the tragedy.’
Now Mr. George had been revolving a fine private scheme,
which he thought might turn to his brother’s advantage.
After George’s presentation to his royal highness at Ken-
sington, more persons than one, his friend (Jeneral Lambert
included, had told him that the duke had inquired regarding
him, and had asked why the young man did not come to
his levee. Importunity so august could not but be satisfied.
A day was appointed between Mr. Lambert and his young
friend, and they went to pay their duty to his royal highness
at his house in PaH Mall.
When it came to George’s turn to make a bow, the prince
w’as especially gracious ; he spoke to Mr. Warrington at
some length about Braddock and the war, and was appar-
ently pleased with the modesty and intelligence of the
young gentleman’s answers. George ascribed the failure
of the expediticm to the panic and surprise certainly, but
more especially to the delays occasioned by the rapacity,
selfishness, and unfair desding of the people of the colonies
towards the king’s troops who were come to defend them.
‘ Could we have moved, sir, a month sooner, the fort was
certainly ours, and the little army had never been defeated,’
Mr. Warrington said ; in which observation his royal
highness entirely concurred.
‘ I am told you saved yourself, sir, mainly by your know-
ledge of the French language,’ the royal duke then affably
observed. Mr. Warrington modestly mentioned how he
had been in the French colonies in his youth, and had
opportunities of acquiring that tongue.
The prince (who had a great urbanity w^hen well pleased,
and the finest sense of humour) condescended to ask who
had taught Mr. Warrington the language ; and to express
his opinion, that, for the pronunciation, the French ladies
were by far the best teachers.
The young Virginian gentleman made a low bow, and
said it was not for him to gainsay his royal highness ; upon
628
THE YIEOmiAHS
which the duke was gCK>d enough to say (in a jocose manner)
that Mr. Warrington was a aiy dog.
Mr, W, remaining respectfully silent, the prince continued
most kindly : ‘ I take the field immediately against the
IVench, w’ho, as you know, are threatening his Majesty’s
Electoral dominions. If you have a mind to make the
campaign with me, your skill in the language may be
useful, and I hope we shall be more fortunate than poor
Braddock ! ’ Every eye was fixed on a young man to whom
so great a prince offered so signal a favour.
And now it was that Mr, George thought he would make
his very cleverest speech, ‘ Sir,’ he said, ‘ your royal
highness’s most kind prop<ml does me infinite honour,
but
^ But what, sir ? ’ says the prince, staring at him.
‘ But I have entered myself of the Temple, to study our
laws, and to fit myseif for my duties at home. If my having
been wounded in the service of my country be any claim
on your kindness, I would humbly ask that my brother,
who knows the IVench language as well as myself, and
has far more strength, courage, and military genius, might
be allowed to serve your roy^ highness in the place of ’
‘ Enou^, enough, sir ! ’ cried out the justly irritated son
of the monarch. ‘ What ? I offer you a favour, and you
hand it over to your brother ? Wait, sir, till I offer you
another 1 ’ And with this the prince turned his back upon
Mr. Warrington, just as abruptly as he turned it on the
Fmich a few months afterwards.
‘Oh, George! Oh, George! Here’s a pretty kettle of
fish ! ’ groan^ Gen^l Lambert, as he and his young
friend walked home together.
t
CHAPTER LXI
IN WHICH THB PEINCB MAECHES UP THE HILL AND DOWN AGAIN
E understand the respectful indig-
nation of all loyal Britons when
they come to read of Mr. George
Warrington’s conduct tow^ards a
gallant and gracious prince, the
beloved son of the best of mon-
archs, and the captain-general
of the British army. What an
inestimable favour has not the
young man slighted ! Wliat a
chance of promotion had he not
thrown away 1 Will Esmond,
whose language w^as always rich
in blasphemies, employed his very
strongest curses in speaking of
his cousin’s behaviour, and ex-
pressed his delight that the con-
founded young Mohock w^as cut-
ting his own throat. Cousin Castle-
wood said that a savage gentleman had a right to scalp
himself if he liked : or perhaps, he added charitably, our
cousin, Mr. Warrington, heard enough of the war-whoop in
Braddock’s affair, and has no more stomach for fighting.
Mr. Will rejoiced that the yoimger brother had gone to the
deuce, and he rejoiced to think that the elder was following
him. The first time he met the feUow, Will said, he should
take care to let Mr. George know \vhat he thought of him.
‘ If you intend to insult George, at least you had best
take care that his brother Harry is out of hearing ! ’ cried
Lady Maria — on which we may fancy more curses uttered
by Mr. Will, with regard to his twin kinsfolk.
‘ Ta, ta, ta ! ’ says my lord. ‘ No more of this squabbling 1
We can’t be all w^arriors in the family ! ’
‘ I never heard your lordship laid claim to be one ! ^ says
Maria.
‘ Never, my dear ; quite the contrary ! WiU is our
champion, and one is quite enough in the house. So I dare
630
THE VIBGINIANS
say "With the two Mohocks George is the student, and
Harry is the fighting man. When you intended to quarrel.
Will, what a pity it w^as you had not George, instead of
t’other, to your hand ! ’
* Your lordship’s hand is famous — ^at piquet,’ says
Will’s mother.
‘ It is a pretty one I ’ says my lord, surveying his fingers
with a simper. ‘ My Lord Hervey’s glove and mine were
of a size. Yes, my hand, as you say, is more fitted for
cards than for war. Yours, my Lady C^tiewood, is pretty
dexterous, too. How I bless the day when you bestowed
it on my lamented father ! ’ In this play of sarcasm, as
in some other games of skill, his lordship was not sorry
to engage, having a cool head, and being able to beat his
family Sil round.
Madame de Bernstein, when she heard of Mr. War-
rington’s bemSy was exceedingly angry, stormed, and
scolded her immediate household ; and would have scolded
George, but she was growing old, and had not the courage
of her early days. Moreover, she was a little afraid of her
nephew, and respectful in her behaviour to him. ‘ You will
never make your fortune at Court, nephew ! ’ she groaned,
when, socm after his discomfiture, the young gentleman
went to wait upon h^.
‘ It was never my wish, madam ! ’ said Mr. George, in
a very stately manner.
* Your wish w’as to help Harry ? You might hereafter
have been of service to your brother, had you accepted
the duke’s offer. Princes do not love to have their favours
rrfused, and I don’t wonder that his royal highness was
offended.’
‘ General Lambert said the same thing,’ George con-
fessed, turning rather red ; ‘ and I see now- that I was
WTong. But you must please remember that I had never
seen a Court before, and I suppose I am scarce likely to
shine in one.’
‘ I think possibly not, my good nephew,’ says the aunt,
taking snuff.
* And w'hat then ? ’ asked George. ‘ I never had ambition
for that kind of glory, and can make myself quite easy
without it. When his royal highness spoke to me — ^most
kimlly, as I own — ^my thought wras, I shall make a very
bad soldier, and my brother would be a very good one.
THE PEINCE MARCHES UP AND DOWN HILL 631
He has a hundred good qualities for the profession, in which
I am deficient ; and would have served a commanding
officer far better than I ever could. Say the duke is in
battle, and his horse is shot, as my poor chief’s was at
home, would he not be better for a beast that had courage
and strength to bear him anywhere, than with one that
could not carry his weight ? *
‘ Au faiL His royal highness’s charger must be a strong
one, my dear ! ’ says the old lady.
‘ Expends Hannibalem,^ mutters George, with a shrug.
‘ Our Hannibal weighs no trifle.’
‘ I don’t quite follow you, sir, and your Hannibal,’ the
baroness remarks.
‘ When Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Lambert remonstrated with
me as you have done, madam,’ George rejoins, with a laugh,
‘ I mswie this same defence which I am making to you.
I said I offered to the prince the best soldier in the family,
and the two gentlemen flowed that my blunder at least had
some excuse. Who knows but that they may set me right
with his royal highness ? The taste I have had of battles
has shown me how^ little my genius inclines that way.
We saw the Scotch play -which everybody is talking about
t’other night. And when the hero, young Norval, said
how he longed to follow to the field some warlike lord,
I thought to myself, how like my Harry is to him, except
that he doth not brag.” Harry is pining now for a red
coat, and, if we don’t mind, will take the shilling. ' He
has the map of Germany for ever under his eyes, and
follows the King of Prussia everywhere. He is not afraid
of men or gods. As for me, I love my books and quiet
best, and to read about battles in Homer or Lucan.’
‘ Then what made a soldier of you at all, my dear ?
And why did you not send Harry with. Mr. Braddock, in-
stead of going yourself ? ’ asked Madame de Bernstein.
‘ My mother loved her younger son the best,’ said George,
darkly. ^ Besides, with the enemy invading our country,
it was my duty, as the head of our family, to go on the
campaign. Had I been a Scotchman twelve years ago,
I should have been a
" Hush, sir ! or I shall be more angry than ever ! ’ said
the old lady, with a perfectly pleased face.
George’s explanation might thus appease Madame de
Bernstein, an old woman whose principles w’e fear were
632
THE VIRGINIANS
but loose : but to the loyal heart of Sir Miles Warrington
and his lady, the young man’s conduct gave a severe
blow indeed I * I should have thought,’ her ladyship
said, ‘ from my sister S^mond Warrington’s letter, that
my brother’s widow was a w'oman of good sense and judge-
ment, and that she had educated her sons in a becoming
manner. But what. Sir Miles, what, my dear Thomas
Claypool, can we think of an education which has resulted
so lamentably for both these young men ? ’
‘ The elder seems to know a power of Latin, though,
and speaks the French and the German too. I heard
him with the Hanover Envoy, at the baroness’s rout,’ says
Mr. Claypool. ‘ The French he jabbered quite easy : and
when he w^as at a loss for the High Dutch, he and the envoy
began in Latin, and talked away till all the room stared.’
‘ It is not language, but principles, Thomas Claypool ! ’
exclaims the virtuotis matron. ‘ What must Mr. Warring-
ton’s principles be, when he could reject an offer made
him by his prince ? Can he speak the High Dutch ? So
much the more ought he to have accepted his royal
highness’s ccmdescension, and made himself useful in the
campaign ! Look at our son, look at Miles I ’
‘ HoH up thy head, Miley, my boy ! ’ says papa.
* I trust, Sir Miles, that as a member of the House of
Commons, as an English gentleman, you will attend his
royal highness’s levee to-morrow, and say, if such an
offer had been made to us for that child, we would have
taken it, though our boy is but ten years of age.’
‘ Faith, Miley, thou wouldst make a good little drummer
or fifer I ’ says papa. ‘ Shouldst like to be a little soldier,
Miley ? ’
‘ Anything, sir, anything I a Warrington ought to be
ready at any moment to have himself cut in pieces for his
sovereign I ’ cries the matron, pointing to the boy ; who,
assoon as he comprehended his mother’s proposal, protested
against it by a loud roar, in the midst of 'which he was
removed by Screwby. In obedience to the conjugal orders,
Sir Miles "went to his royal highness’s levee the next day,
and made a protest of his love and duty, which the prince
deigned to accept, saying :
‘ Nobody ever suppc^ed that Sir Miles Warrington would
ever refui^ any place offered to him.’ A compliment
gradious indeed, and repeated everywhere by Lady War-
THE PRINCE MARCHES UP AND DOWN HILL 633
ringfeon, as shoeing how implicitly the august family on the
throne could rely on the loyalty of the Warringtons.
Accordingly, when this worthy couple saw George, they
received him with a ghastly commiseration, such as our
dear relatives or friends vnll sometimes extend to us when
we have done something fatal or clumsy in life ; when we
have come badly out of our lawsuit ; when w^e enter the
room just as the company has been abusing us ; when our
banker has broke; or we for our sad part have had to
figure in the commercial columns of the London Gazette ;
when, in a word, w^e are guilty of some notorious fault,
or blunder, or misfortune. Who does not know that face
of pity ? Whose dear relations have not so deplored him,
not dead, but living ? Not yours ? Then, sir, if you
have never been in scrapes ; if you have never sowed
a handful of wild oats or two ; if you have always been
fortunate, and good, and careful, and butter has never
melted in your mouth, and an imprudent word has never
come out of it ; if you have never sinned and repented,
and been a fool and l)^n sorry — ^then, sir, you are a wiseacre
who won’t waste your time over an i<Re novel, and it is
not de te that the fable is narrated
Not that it was just on Sir Miles’s part to turn upon
George, and be angry with his nephew for refusing the
offer of promotion made by his royal highness, for Sir
Miles himself had agreed in George’s wew of pursuing quite
other than a military career, and it was in rei^pect to this
plan of her son’s that Madam Esmond had written from
Virginia to Sir Miles Warrington. George had announced
to her his intention of entering at the Temple, and quali-
fying himself for the magisterial and civil duties which,
in the course of nature, he would be called to fulfil ; nor
could any one applaud his resolution more cordially than
his uncle Sir Miles, who introduced George to a lawyer of
reputation, under whose guidance we may fancy the
young gentleman reading leisurely. Madam Esmond
from home signified her approval of her son’s course, fully
agreeing with. Sir Miles (to -whom and his lady she begged
to send her grateful remembrances) that the British Con-
stitution was the envy of the world, and the proper object
of every English gentleman’s admiring study. The chief
point to which George’s mother objected was the notion
that Mr. Warrington should have to sit down in the Temple
THE VIRGINIAKS
6S4:
dinner-hall, and cut at a shoulder of mutton, and drink
small-beer out of tin pannikins, by the side of rough stu-
dents who woi^e go^^Tis like the parish-clerk. George’s
loyal younger brother shared too this repu^ance. Any-
thing was good enough for Mm, Harry said; he was a
younger son, and prepared to rough it ; but George in a
gown, and dining in a mess with three nobody’s sons off
dirty pewter platters 1 Harry never could relish this
condescension on his brother’s part, or fancy George in
liis proper place at any except the high table ; and was
sorry that a plan Madam Esmond hinted at in her letters
was not feasible — ^viz. that an application should be made
to the Master of the Temple, who should be informed that
Mr. Geor^ Warrington was a gentleman of most noble
birth, and of great property in America, and ought only
to sit wUh ike very best company in the Hall. Bather to
Harry’s discomfiture, when he communicated his own
and his mother’s ideas to the gentlemen’s new coffee-
house friend Mr. Spencer, Mr. Spencer received the proposal
with roars of laughter ; and I cannot learn, from the War-
rington papers, that any application was made to the
Master of the Temple on this subject. Besides his literary
and historical pursuits, which were those he most especially
loved, Mr. Warrington studied the law’s of his country,
attended the courts at Westminster, where he heard a
Henley, a Pratt, a Murray, and those other great famous
schools of eloquence and patriotism, the two Houses of
Parliament.
Gradually Mr. Warrington made acquaintance with
some of the members of the House and the Bar ; • who, when
they came to know him, spoke of him as a young gentleman
of good parte and good breeding, and in terms so generally
complimentary, that his good uncle’s heart relented towards
him, and Dora and Flora began once more to smile upon
him. This reconciliation dated from the time when his
royal highness the duke, after having been defeated by the
French, in the affair of Hastenbeck, concluded the famous
capitulation with the French, which his Majesty George II
refused to ratify. His royal highness, as ’tis well known,
flung up his commissions after this disgrace, laid down
his commander’s baton — ^which, it must be confessed,
he had not wielded with much luck or dexterity — ^and
never again appeared at the head of armies or in public
THE PRINCE MARCHES UP AND DOWN HILL 635
life. The stout warrior would not allow a word of com-
plaint against his father and sovereign to escape his lips ;
but, as he retired vith his wounded honour, and as he would
have no interest or authority more, nor any places to give,
it may be supposed that Sir Miles Warrington’s anger
against his nephew diminished as his respect for his royal
highness diminished.
As our two gentlemen were walking in St. James’s Park,
one day, with their friend Mr. Lambert, they met his royal
highness in plain clothes and without a star, and made
profound bow's to the prince, wrho w^as pleased to stop and
speak to them.
He asked Mr. Lambert how he liked my Lord Ligonier, his
new chief at the Horse Guards, and the new duties there
in w'hich he w^as engaged ? And, recognizing the young
men, with that fidelity of memory for which his royal race
hath ever been remarkable, he said to Mr. Warrin^on :
‘ You did well, sir, not to come with me when I asked
you in the spring.’
‘ I was sorry, then, sir,’ Mr. Wamngton said, making
a very low reverence, ‘ but I am more sorry now.’
On which the prince said, ‘ Thank you, sir,’ and, touching
his hat, walked away. And the circumstances of this
interview, and the discourse which passed at it, being
related to Mrs. Esmond Warrington in a letter from her
younger son, created so deep an impression in that lady’s
mind, that she narrated the anecdote many hundreds
of times until all her friends and acquaintances knew and,
perhaps, w^ere tired of it.
Our gentlemen w^ent through the Park, and so towards
the Strand, where they had business. And Mr. Lambert,
pointing to the lion on the top of the Earl of Northumber-
land’s house at Charing Cross, says : —
* Harry Warrington ! your brother is like yonder lion.’
‘ Because he is as brave as one,’ says Harry.
‘ Because I respect virgins ! ’ says George, laughing.
* Because you are a stupid lion. Because you turn your
back on the east, and absolutely salute the setting sun.
Why, child, w^hat earthly good can you get by being civil
to a man in hopeless dudgeon and disgrace ? Your uncle
will be more angry with you than ever — and so am I, sir.’
But Mr. Lambert was always laughing in his waggish w^ay,
and, indeed, he did not look the least angry.
636
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LXII
ABMA VmtrMQUE
j' tlllSli’SHB' NDEED, if Harry Warrington
had a passion for military pur-
suits and studies, there was
enough of war stirring in
Europe, and enough talk in all
societies which he frequented
|| in London, to excite and
inflame him. Though our
own gracious prince of the
house of Hanover had been
beaten, the Protestant Hero,
the King of Prussia, was filling
the world with his glory, and
winning those astonishing
victories in which I deem it
fmrtunate on my own account
- that my poor Harry took no
part ; for then his veracious biographer tvouM have had to
narrate battles the description whereof has been undertaken
by another 'pen, 1 am glad, I say, that Harry Warrington
was not at Rossbach on that famous Gunpowder Pete day.
on the 5th of November, in the year 1757 ; nor at that
tremendous slaughtering-match of Leuthen, which the
Prussian king played a month afterwards; for these
prodigious actions will presently be narrated in other
volumes, which I and aU the world are eager to behold.
Would you have this history compete with yonder book ?
Could my jaunty, yellow park-phaeton run counter to that
^im chariot of thundering war ? Could my meek little
jog-trot Pegasus meet the shock of yon steed of foam-
ing bit and flaming nostril? Dear, kind reader (with
whom I love to talk from time to time, stepping down
from the stage where our figures are performing, attired
in the habits and using the parlance of past ages), — ^my
kind, patient reader ! it is a mercy for both of us that
Harry Warrington did not follow the King of the
Borussians, as he was minded to do, for then I should
ARMA VIRUMQUE
607
have had to describe battles which Carlyle is going to
paint ; and I don’t wish you should make odious com-
parisons between me and that master.
Harry Warrington not only did not join the king of the
Borussians, but he pined and chafed at not going. He led
a sulky usel^s life, that is the fact. He dangled about
the military coffee-houses. He did not care for reading
anything save a newspaper. His turn was not literary.
He even thought novels were stupid ; and, as for the ladies
crying their eyes out over lilr. Richardson, he could not
imagine how they could be moved by any such nonsense.
He used to laugh in a very hearty, jolly way, but a little late,
and some time after the joke was over. Pray, why should
all gentlemen have a literary taste ^ ; and do we like some
of our friends the worse because they never turned a couplet
in their lives ? Ruined, perforce idle, dependent on his
brother for supplies, if he read a book falling asleep over
it, with no fitting work for his great strong hands to do —
how lucky it is that he did not get into more trouble.
Why, in the case of Achilles himself, when he was sent by
his mamma to the court of King What-d’ye-call-’em in
order to be put out of harm’s reach, what happened to him
amongst a parcel of women with "whom he was made
to idle his life away ? And how did Pyrrhus come into
the world ? A powerful mettlesome young Achilles ought
not to be leading-stringed by women too much ; is out
of his place dawdling by distaffs or handing coffee-cups ;
and when he is not fighting, depend on it, is likely to fall
into much worse mischief.
Those soft-hearted women, the two elder ladies of the
Lambert family, with whom he mainly consorted, had
an untiring pity and kindness for Harry, such as women
only — and only a few of those — can give. If a man is in
grief, who cheers him ; in trouble, who consoles him ;
in wrath, who soothes him ; in joy, who makes him doubly
happy ; in prosperity, who rejoices ; in disgrace, who backs
him against the world, and dresses with gentle imguents
and warm poultices the rankling wounds made by the
stings and arrows of outrageous Fortune ? Who but woman,
if you please ? You who are ill and sore from the buffets
of Fate, have you one or two of these sweet physicians ?
Return thanks to the gods that they have left you so
much of consolation. What gentleman is not more or
638
THE VIRGINIANS
less a Prometheus ? Who has not his rock (ai, ai), his
chain (ea, ea), and his liver in a deuce of a condition ? But
the sea-nymphs come — the gentle, the sympathizing ;
they kiss our writhing feet ; they moisten our parched
lips with their tears ; they do their blessed best to console
us Titans • they don’t turn their backs upon us after our
overthrow.
Now Theo and her mother were full of pity for Harry ;
but Hetty’s heart was rather hard and seemingly savage
towards him. She chafed that his position was not more
glorious ; she was angry that he was still dependent and
idle. The whole world was in arms, and could he not
carry a musket ? It was harvest-time, and hundreds of
thousands of reapers were out with their flashing sickles ;
could he not use his, and cut down his sheaf or two of
glory ?
‘ Why, how savage the little thing is with him 1 ’ says
papa, after a scene in which, according to her wont. Miss
Hetty had been firing little shots into that quivering target
which came and set itself up in Mrs. Lambert’s drawing-
room every day.
* Her conduct is perfectly abominable ! ’ cries mamma ;
‘ she deserves to be whipped, and sent to bed.’
‘ Perhaps, mother, it is because she likes him better
than any of us do,’ says Theo, ‘ and it is for his sake that
Hetty is angry. If I, were fond of — of some one, I should
like to be able to admire and respect him always — to think
everything he did right — and my gentleman better than
all the gentlemen in the world ! ’
^ The truth is, my dear,’ answers Mrs. Lambert, ‘ that
your father is so much better than all the world, he has
spoiled us. ffid you ever see any one to compare with
him ? ’
* Very few, indeed,’ owns Theo, with a blush.
‘ Very few. Who is so good-tempered ? ’
‘ I think nobody, mamma,’ Theo acknowledges.
" Or so brave ? ’
‘ Why, I dare say Mr. Wolfe, or Harry, or Mr. George,
are very brave.’
‘ Or so learned and witty ? ’
‘ I am sure Mr. George seems very learned, and witty
too, in his way,’ says Theo ; ‘ and has manners are very
fine — you own they are. Madame de Bernstein says they
ABMA YIRUMQUE
641
are, and she hath seen the world. Indeed, Mr. George has
a lofty way with him, which I don’t see in other people; and
in reading books, I find he chooses the fine noble things
always, and loves them in spite of all his satire. He cer-
tainly is of a satirical turn, but then he is only bitter against
mean things and people. No gentleman hath a more
tender heart, I am sure ; and but yesterday, after he had
been talking so bitterly as you said, I happened to look
out of window, and saw him stop and treat a whole crowd
of little children to apples at the stall at the corner. And
the day before yesterday, when he was coming and brought
me the Moliere, he stopped and gave money to a beggar,
and how charmingly, sure, he reads the French 1 I agree
with him though about Tartufie, though ’tis so wonderfully
clever and lively, that a mere villain and hypocrite is a figure
too mean to be made the chief of a great piece. lago,
Mr. George said, is near as great a villain ; but then he is
not the first character of the tragedy, which is Othello,
with his noble weakness. But what fee ladies and gentle-
men MoliAre reprints — so Mr. George thinks — ^and — but
oh, I don’t dare to repeat the verses after himJ
*' But you know them by heart, my dear ? ’ asks Mrs.
Lambert.
And Theo replies, ‘ Oh, yes, mamma ! I know them
by . . . Nonsense I ’
I here fancy osculations, palpitations, and exit Miss
Theo, blushing like a rose, ^^y had she stopped in her
sentence ? Because mamma was looking at her so oddly.
And why was mamma looking at her so oddly ? And why
had she looked after Mr. George, when he was going away,
and looked for him when he was coming ? Ah, and why
do cheeks blush, and why do roses bloom ? Old Time is
still a-flying. Old spring and bud time; old summer
and bloom time ; old autumn and seed time ; old winter
time, when the cracking, shivering, old tree-tops are bald
or covered with snow.
A few minutes after George arrived, Theo would come
downstairs with a fluttering heart, maybe, and a sweet
nosegay in her cheeks, just culled, as it were, fresh in his
honour ; and I suppose she must have been constantly
at that window which commanded the street, and whence
she could espy his generosity to the sweep, or his purchases
from the apple-woman. But if it was Harry who knocked,
VIHGIIUANS Y
642
THE VIRGINIANS
she remained in her own apartment with her work or her
books, sending her sister to receive the young gentleman,
or her brothers when the elder was at home from college
or Doctor Cnisius from the Chartreux gave the younger
leave to go home. And 'what good eyes Theo must have
had — and often in the evening, too — ^to note the difference
between Harry’s yellow hair and George’s dark locks, — and
between their figure, though they w^ere so like that people
continually were mistaking one for the other brother.
Now it is certain that Theo never mistook one or t’other ;
and that Hetty, for her part, was not in the least excited,
or rude, or pert, when she found the black-haired gentleman
in her mother’s drawing-room.
Our friends could come when they liked to Mr. Lambert’s
house, and stay as long as they chose ; and, one day, he
of the golden locks was sitting on a couch there, in an
attitude of more than ordinary idleness and despondency,
when who should come down to him but Miss Hetty ?
I say it was a most curious thing (though the girls would
have gone to the rack rather than own any collusion), that
when Harry called, Hetty appeared ; w’hen George arrived,
Theo somehow came ; and so, according to the usual
dispensation, it was Miss Lambert, junior, who now* arrived,
to entertain the younger Vir^nian.
After usual ceremonies and compliments, we may imagine
that the lady says to the gentleman ;
‘ And pray, sir, what makes your honour look so glum
this morning ? ’
‘ Ah, Hetty I ’ says he. ‘ I have nothing else to do but
to look glum. I remember when we were boys — and I a
rare idle one, you may be sure — ^I would always be asking
my tutor for a holiday, which I would pass very likely
swinging on a gate, or making ducks and drakes over the
pond, and those do-nothing days were always the most
melancholy. What have I got to do now from morning
tin night ? ’
‘ Breakfast, walk — dinner, walk — ^tea, supper, I suppose ;
and a pipe of your Virginia,’ says Miss Hetty, tossing her
head.
‘ I ten you what, when I w^ent back vith Charley to the
Qiartreux, t’other night, I had a mind to say to the master,
“Teach me, sir. Here’s a boy knows a deal more Latin
and Greek, at thirteen, than I do, who am ten years older.
ARMA VIRUMQUE
64S
I have nothing to do from morning till night, and I might
as well go to my books again, and see if I can repair my
idleness as a boy.” Why do you laugh, Hetty ? ’
‘ I laugh to fancy you at the head of a class, and called
up by the master ! ’ cries Hetty.
‘ I shouldn’t be at the head of the class,’ Harry says,
humbly. ‘George might be at the head of any class,
but I am not a bookman, you see ; and when I was
young neglected myself, and was very idle. We would
not let our tutors cane us much at home, but, if we had,
it might have done me good.’
Hetty drubbed with her little foot, and looked at the
young man sitting before her — strong, idle, melancholy*
‘ Upon my word, it might do you good now ! ’ she was
mind^ to say. ‘ What does Charley say about the caning
at school ? Does his account of it set you longing fcr
it, pray ? ’ she asked.
‘His account of his school/ Harry answered, simply,
‘ makes me see that I have been idle when I ought to
have worked, and that I have not a genius for books, and
for w^hat am I good ? Only to spend my patrimony w^hen
I come abroad, or to lounge at cofee-houses or race-courses,
or to gallop behind dogs when I am at home. I am good
for nothing, I am.’
‘ What, such a great, brave, strong fellow as you good
for nothing ? ’ cries Het. ‘ I would not confess as much
to any woman, if I were imce as good for nothing ! ’
‘ "^at am I to do ? I ask for leave to go into the army,
and Madam Esmond does not answer me. ’Tis the only
thing I am fit for. I have no money to buy. Having
spent all my own, and so much of my brother’s, I cannot
and won’t ask for more. If my mother would but send
me to the army, you know I would jump to go.’
‘ Eh ! A gentleman of spirit does not want a woman
to buckle his sword on for him, or to clean his firelock !
What was that our papa told us of the young gentleman
at Court yesterday ? — Sir John Armytage ’
‘ Sir John Armytage ? I used to know him when I fre-
quented White’s and the club-houses — a fine, noble young
gentleman, of a great estate in the north.’
‘ And engaged to be married to a famous beauty, too —
Miss Howe, my Lord Howe’s sister — but t/iat, I suppose,
is not an obstacle to gentlemen ? ’
THE TIRGINIANS
644
* An obstacle to what ? ’ asks the gentleman.
* An obstacle to glory I ’ says Miss Hetty. ‘ I think
no woman of spirit would say “Stay ! ” though she adored
her lover ever so much, when his country said ‘‘ Go ! ”
Sir John had volunteered for the expedition which is pre-
paring, and being at Court yesterday, his Majesty asked
him when he woidd be ready to go ? “ To-morrow, please
your Majesty,” replies Sir John, and the king said, that
was a soldier’s answer. My father himself is longing to
go, though he has mamma and all us brats at home. Oh
dear, oh dear ! Why wasn’t I a man myself ? Both my
brothers are for the Church ; but, as for me, I know I should
have made a famous little soldier ! ’ And, so speaking, this
young person strode about the room, wearing a most
courageous military aspect, and looking as bold as Joan of
Arc.
Harry beheld her with a tender admiration. ‘ I think,’
says he, ' I would hardly like to see a musket on that little
shoulder, nor a wound on that pretty face, Hetty.’
* Wounds ! who fears wounds ? ’ cries the little maid.
‘ Muskets ? If I could carry one, I would use it. You
men fancy that we women are good for nothing but to
make puddings, or stitch samplers. Why wasn’t I a man,
I say ? George was reading to us yesterday out of Tasso —
look, here it is, and I thought the verses applied to me.
See 1 Here is the book, with the mark in it where we left off.’
^ With the mark in it ? ’ says Harry, dutifully.
‘ Yes I it is about a woman who is disappointed because —
because her brother does not go to war, and she says of
herself —
Alas ! why did not Heaven these members frail
With lively foorce and vigour strengthen, so
Ihat I this silken gown . .
‘ Silken gown ? ’ says downright Harry, with a look of
inquiry.
‘ Well, sir, I know ’tis but calimanco ; — ^but so it is
in the book —
. . . this silken gown and slender veil
Might for a breastplate and a helm forgo ;
Then should not heat, nor cold, nor rain, nor hail.
Nor storms that fall, nor blust’ring winds that blow.
Withhold me ; but I would, both day and night.
In pitched field or private combat, fight —
ABMA YIRUMQUE
645
Fight ? Yes, that I would ! Why are both my brothers
to be parsons, I say ? One of my papa’s children ought to
be a soldier ! ’
Harry laughed, a very gentle, kind laugh, as he looked
at her. He felt that he would not like much to hit such
a tender little warrior as that.
‘ Why,’ says he, holding a finger out, ‘ I think here is a
finger nigh as big as your arm. How would you stand
up before a great, strong man ? I should like to see a man
try and injure you, though ; I should just like to see him !
You little, delicate, tender creature ! Ho you suppose
any scoun^el would dare to do anything unkind to ytm ? ’
And, excited by this flight of his imagination, Harry fell
to walking up and down the room, too, chafing at the idea
of any rogue of a Frenchman daring to be rude to Miss
Hester Lambert.
It w^as a belief in this silent courage of his which sub-
jugated Hetty, and this quality which she supposed him
to possess, which caused her specially to admire him.
Miss Hetty was no more bold, in re^ty, than Madam
Erminia, whose speech she had been reading out of the
book, and about whom Mr. Harry Warrington never heard
one single word. He may have been in the room when
brother George was reading his poetry out to the ladies,*
but his thoughts were busy with his own affairs, and he
was entirely bewildered with your Clotildas and Erminias,
and giants, and enchanters, and nonsense. No, Miss
Hetty, I say and believe, had nothing of the virago in
her composition ; else, no doubt, she would have taken
a fancy to a soft young fellow with a literary turn, or
a genius for playing the flute, according to the laws of
contrast and nature provided in those cases ; and who has
not heard how great, strong men have an affinity for frail,
tender little women ; how tender little women are attracted
by great, honest, strong men ; and how your burly heroes
and champions of war are constantly henpeck^ ? If
Mr. Harry Warrington falls in love with a woman who is
like Miss Lambert in disposition, and if he marries her —
without being conjurers, I think we may all see what the
end will be.
So, whilst Hetty was firing her little sarcasms into Harry,
he for a while scarcely felt that they were stinging him, and
let her shoot on ^without so much as taking the trouble to
646
THE VIRGINIANS
shake the little arrows out of liis hide. Did she mean by
her sneers and innuendoes to rouse him into action ? He
was too magnanimous to understand such small hints.
Did she mean to shame him by saying that she, a weak
woman, would don the casque and breastplate ? The
simple fellow either melted at the idea of her being in
danger, or at the notion of her fighting fell a-laughing.
^ Pray what is the use of having a strong hand if you only
use it to hold a skein of silk for my mother ? ’ cries Miss
Hester ; ‘ and what is the good of being ever so strong
in a dra-wing-room ? Nobody wants you to throw any-
body out of window, Harry ! A strong man, indeed !
I suppose there’s a stronger at Bartholomew Fair. James
Wolfe is not a strong man. He seems quite weakly and ill.
When he was here last he was coughing the whole time,
and as pale as if he had seen a ghost.’
* I never could understand why a man should be frightened
at a ghost/ says Harry.
‘ Pray, have you seen one, sir ? ’ asks the pert young
lady.
^No. I thought I did onee at home — when we were
boys ; but it was only Nathan in his night-shirt ; but
I wasn’t frightened when I thoi^ht he vxis a ghost. I be-
lieve there’s no such things. Our nurses teU a pack of
lies about ’em,’ says Harry, gravely. ‘ George was a little
frightened ; but then he’s Here he paused.
‘ Then George is what ? ’ asked Hetty.
* George is different from me, that’s all. Our mother’s
a bold woman as ever you saw, but she screams at seeing
a mouse — ^always does — can’t help it. It’s her nature.
So, you see, perhaps my brother can’t bear ghosts. I don’t
mind ’em.’
‘ George always says, you would have made a better
soldier than he.’
‘ So I think I should, if I had been allowed to try. But
he can do a thousand things better than me, or anybody
else in the world. Why didn’t he let me volunteer on
Braddook’s expedition ? I might have got knocked on the
head, and then I should have been pretty much as useful
as I am now, and then I shouldn’t have ruined myself, and
brought people to point at me and say that I had disgraced
the name of Warrington. Why mayn’t I go on this expedi-
tion, aad volunteer like Sir John Armytage ? Oh, Hetty I
ARMA VIRUMQUE
647
I’m a miserable fellow — ^that’s what I am,’ and the miser-
able fellow paced the room at double quick time. ‘ I wish
I had never come to Europe,’ he groaned out.
‘ What a compliment to us ! Thank you, Harry 1 ’
but presently, on an appealing look from the gentleman,
she added, ‘ Are you — ^are you thinking of going home ? ’
‘ And have aU Virginia jeering at me ! There’s not
a gentleman there that wouldn’t, except one, and him
my mother doesn’t like. I should be ashamed to go home
now, I think. You don’t know my mother, Hetty. I ain’t
afraid of most things ; but, somehow, I am of her. Wliat
shall I say to her, when she says, “Harry, where’s your
patrimony ? ” “ Spent, mother,” I shall have to say.
“ What have you done with it ? ” “ Wasted it, mother,
and went to prison after.” “ Wlio took you out of prison ? ”
“ Brother George, ma’am, he took me out of prison ; and
now I’m come back, having done no good for myself, with
no profession, no prospects, no nothing — only to look after
negroes, and be scolded at home ; or to go to sleep at
sermons ; or to play at cards, and drink, and fight cocks
at the taverns about.” How can I look the gentlemen of
the coimtry in the face ? I’m ashamed to go home in this
way, I say. I must and will do something ! What shall
I do, Hetty ? Ah ! what shall I do ? ’
‘ Do ? WTiat did Mr. Wolfe do at Louisbourg ? Ill as
he was, and in love as we knew him to be, he didn’t stop
to be nursed by his mother, Harry, or to dawdle with his
sweetheart. He went on the king’s service, and hath
come back covered with honour. If there is to be another
great campaign in America, papa says he is sure of a great
command.’
‘ I wish he would take me with him, and that a ball
would knock me on the head and finish me,’ groaned Harry.
‘ You speak to me, Hetty, as though it were my fault that
I am not in the army, when you know I would give — ^give,
forsooth, what have I to give ? — ^yes ! my life to go on
service ! ’
‘ Life, indeed ! ’ says Miss Hetty, with a shrug of her
shoulders.
‘ You don’t seem to think that of much value, Hetty,’
remarked Harry, sadly. ‘ No more it is — ^to anybody.
I’m a poor useless fellow. I’m not even free to throw it
away as I would like, being under orders here and at home.’
m
THE YmamiA^B
‘ Orders, indeed ! Why under orders ? ’ cries Miss Hetty.
‘ Aren't you tall enough, and old enough, to act for yoursefi,
and must you have George for a master here, and your
mother for a schoolmistress at home ? If I were a man,
I would do something famous before I was two-and-twenty
years old, that I would ! I would have the world speak
of me. I wouldn’t daw^dle at apron-strings. I wouldn’t
curse my fortune — I’d make it. I vow and declare I would !’
Now, for the first time, Harry began to wince at the words
of his young lecturer.
‘No negro on our estate is more a slave than I am,
Hetty,’ he said, turning very red as he addressed her;
‘but then. Miss Lambert, we don’t reproach the poor
fellow for not being free. That isn’t generous. At least,
that isn’t the way I understand honour. Perhaps with
women it’s different, or I may be wrong, and have no right
to be hurt at a young girl telling me what my faults are.
Perhaps my faults are not my faults — only my cursed
luck. You have been talking ever so long about this
gentleman volunteering, and that man winning glory, and
cracking up their courage as if I had none of my own.
I suppose, for the matter of that, I’m as well provided
as other gentlemen. I don’t brag : but I’m not afraid of
Mr. WoHe, nor of Sir John A^ytage, nor of anybody
else that ever I saw. How can I buy a commission
when I’ve spent my last shilling, or ask my brother for
more who has already halved with me ? A gentleman of
my rank can’t go a common soldier — else, by Jupiter, I
would ! And if a bah finished me, I suppose Miss Hetty
Lambert wouldn’t be very sorry. It isn’t kind, Hetty —
I didn’t think it of you.’
‘ What is it I have said ? ’ asks the young lady. ‘ I have
only said Sir John Armytage has volunteered, and Mr.
Wolfe has covered himself with honour, and you begin
to scold me I How can I help it if Mr. Wolfe is brave and
fe»mous ? Is that any reason you should he angry, pray ? ’
‘ I didn’t say angry,’ said Harry, gravely. ‘ I said I was
hurt.’
‘ Oh, indeed ! I thought such a little creature as I am
couldn’t hurt anybody ! I’m sure ’tis mighty compli-
m^tary to me to say that a young lady whose arm is no
bigger than your little finger can hurt such a great strong
man as you J ’
ARMA VIROIQUE
649
* I scarce thought you would try, Hetty/ the young
man said. ‘ You see, I’m not used to this kind of welcome
in this house.’
‘ What is it, my poor boy V ’ asks kind Mrs. Lambert,
looking in at the door at this juncture, and finding the
youth with a very woe-wom countenance.
‘ Oh, w^e have heard the story before, mamma 1 ’ says
Hetty, hurriedly. ‘ Harry is making his old complaint
of having nothing to do. And he is quite unhappy ; and
he is telling us so over and over again, that’s all.’
‘ So are you hungry over and over again, my dear 1
Is that a reason why your papa and I should leave off giving
you dinner ? ’ cries mamma, with some emotion. ‘ Will
you stay and have ours, Harry ? ’Tis just three o’clock I ’
Harry agreed to stay, after a few faint negations. ‘My
husband dines abroad. We are but three women, so you
will have a dull dinner,’ remarks Mrs. Lambert.
‘ We shall have a gentleman to enliven us, mamma,
I dare say ! ’ says Madam Pert, and then looked in mamma’s
face with that admirable gaze of blank innocence which
Madam Pert know^s how to assume when she has been
specially and successfully wicked.
When the dinner appeared Miss Hetty came downstairs,
and was exceedingly chatty, lively, and entertaining. Theo
did not know that any little diiSerence had occurred (such,
alas, my Christian friends, will happen in the most charming
families), did not know% I say, that anything had happened
until Hetty’s uncommon sprightliness and gaiety roused
her suspicions. Hetty w’ould start a dozen subjects of
conversation — ^the King of Prussia, and the news from
America ; the last masquerade, and the highwayman
shot near Barnet ; and w^hen her sister, admiring this
volubility, inquired the reason of it, with her eyes, —
‘ Oh, my dear, you need not nod and wink at me ! ’
cries Hetty. ‘ Mamma asked Harry on purpose to enliven
us, and I am talking until he begins, — just like the fiddles
at the playhouse, you know’, Theo I First the fiddles,
then the play. Pray begin, Harry ! ’
‘ Hester ! ’ cries mamma.
‘ I merely asked Harry to entertain us. You said your-
seK, mother, that we were only three w’omen, and the ^nner
w^ould be dull for a gentleman ; unless, indeed, he chose
to be very lively.’
650
THE VIEGINIAI^S
*I’m not that on most days — and, Heaven knows, on
this day less than most,’ says poor Harry.
‘ Why on this day less than another ? Tuesday is
as good a day to be lively as Wednesday. The only day
when we mustn’t be lively is Sunday. Well, you know
it is, ma’am ! We mustn’t sing, nor dance, nor do anything
on Sunday.’
And in this naughty way the young woman went on
for the rest of the evening, and was complimented by her
mother and sister when poor Harry took his leave. He
w’as not ready of wit, and could not fling back the taunts
which Hetty cast against him. Nay, had he been able
to retort, he would have been silent. He was too generous
to engage in that small war, and chose to take all Hester’s
sarcasms without an attempt to parry or evade them.
Very likely the young lady watched and admired that
magnanimity, while she tried it so cruelly. And after
one of her fits of ill-behaviour, her parents and friends
had not the least need to scold her, as she candidly told
them, because she suffered a great deal more than they
would ever have had her, and her conscience punished
her a great deal more severely than her kind elders would
have thought of doing. I suppose she lies awake all that
night, and tosses and tumbles in her bed. I suppose she
wets her pillow with tears, and should not mind about her
sobbing : unless it kept her sister awake ; unless she
was unwell the next day, and the doctor had to be fetched ;
unless the whole family is to be put to discomfort ; mother
to choke over her dinner in flurry and indignation ; father
to eat his roast beef in silence and with bitter sauce : every-
body to look at the door each time it opens, with a vague
hope that Harry is coming in. If Harry does not come,
why at least does not George come ? thi^s Miss Theo.
&me time in the course of the evening comes a billet
from George Warrington, with a large nosegay of lilacs,
per Mr. Gumbo. ‘ “ I send my best duty and regards
to 1 Mrs. Lambert and the ladies,” ’ George says, " “ and
humbly beg to present to Miss Theo this nosegay of lilacs,
which she says she loves in the early spring. You must
not thank me for them, please, but the gardener of Bedford
House, with whom I have made great friends by presenting
him with some dried specimens of a Virginian plant which
some ladies don’t think as fragrant as lilacs.
ARMA VIRUMQUE
651
‘ “ I have been in the garden almost all the day. It
is alive with sunshine and spring : and I have been com-
posing two scenes of you know what, and polishing the
verses which the Page sings in the fourth act, under Sy Mia’s
window, when she cannot hear, poor thing, because she
has Just had her head ojff.” ’
‘ ftovoking ! I wish he would not always sneer and
laugh ! The verses are beautiful,’ says Theo.
‘ You really think so, my dear ? How very odd ! ’
remarks papa.
Little Het looks up from her dismal comer with a faint
smile of humour. Theo’s secret is a secret for nobody
in the house, it seems. Can any young people guess what
it is ? The lady continues to read :
‘ “ Spencer has asked the famous Mr. Johnson to break-
fast to-morrow, who condescends to hear the play, and
who w'on’t, I hope, be too angry because my heroine under-
goes the fate of his in Irem- I have heard he came up to
London himself as a young man with only his tragedy
in his wallet. Shall I ever be able to get mine played ? Can
you fancy the catcall music beginning, and the pit hissing
at that perilous part of the fourth act, where my execu-
tioner comes out from the closet with his great sword,
at the awful moment when he is called upon to amputate ?
They say Mr. Fielding, when the pit hissed at a part of
one of his pieces, about which Mr. Garrick had warned
him, said, ‘ Hang them, they have found it out, have they ? ’
and finished his punch in tranquillity. I suppose his wife
was not in the boxes. There are some women to whom
I would be very unw’^illing to give pain, and there are some
to whom I would give the best I have.” ’
‘ Whom can he mean ? The letter is to you, my dear.
I protest he is making love to your mother before
my face ! ’ cries papa to Hetty, who only gives a little
sigh, puts her hand in her father’s hand, and then with-
draws it.
‘ “ To whom I would give the best I have. To-day it
is only a bunch of lilacs. To-morrow it may be what ? —
a branch of rue — b, sprig of bays, perhaps — anything, so
it be my best and my all.
‘ “ I have had a fine long day, and all to myself. What
do you think of Harry playing truant ? ” ’ (Here we may
imagine, what they call in France, or what they used
THE VIRGINIANS
m
to call, when men dared to speak or citizens to hear, sensa-
tion dans Vaudiioire,)
* “ I suppose Carpezan wearied the poor fellow’s existence
out. Certain it is he has been miserable for weeks past ;
and a change of air and scene may do him good. This
morning, quite early, he came to my room ; and told me
he had taken a seat in the Portsmouth Machine, and
proposed to go to the Isle of Wight, to the army there.” ’
The army ! Hetty looks very pale at this announcement,
and her mother continues : —
‘ “ And a little portion of it, namely, the thirty-second
regiment, is commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Richmond
Webb — ^the nephew of the famous old general under w^hom
my grandfather Esmond served in the great wars of Marl-
borough. Mr. Webb met us at our uncle’s, accosting us
very politely, and giving us an invitation to visit him at
his raiment. Let my poor brother go and listen to his
darling music of fife and drum 1 He bade me tell the
ladies that they should hear from him. I kiss their hands,
and go to dress for dinner, at the ‘ Star and Garter in Pall
Mall. We are to have Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge,
Mr. Walpole, possibly, if he is not too fihe to dine in a tavern ;
a young Iri^man, a Mr. Bourke, who they say is a wonder
of eloquence and learning — ^in fine, all the wits of Mr.
Dodsley’s shop. Quick, Gumbo, a coach, and my French
grey suit ! And if gentlemen ask me ‘ Who gave you
that sprig of lilac you w^ear on your heart-side ? ’ I shall
call a bumper, and give Lilac for a toast.” ’
I fear there is no more rest for Hetty on this night than
on the previous one, when she had behaved so mutinously
to poor Harry Warrington. Some secret resolution must
have inspired that gentleman, for after leaving Mr. Lam-
bert’s table, he paced the streets for a while, and appeared
at a late hour in the evening at Madame de Bernstein’s
house in darges Street. Her ladyship’s health had been
somewhat ailing of late, so that even her favourite routs
were denied her, and she was sitting over a quiet game of
ecarte, with a ^vine of whom our last new^s were from
a lock-up house hard by that in w’hich Harry Warrington
had been himself confined. George, at Harry’s request,
had paid the little debt under which Mr. Sampson had
suffered temporarily- He had been at his living for a year.
ARMA VIRUMQUE
666
He may have paid and contracted ever so many debts,
have been in and out of jail many times since we saw him .
For some time past he h^ been back in London, stout and
hearty as usual, and ready for any invitation to cards
or claret. Madame de Bernstein did not care to have
her game interrupted by her nephew, whose conversation
had little interest now for the fickle old woman. Next
to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most
selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to
run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and
checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into
old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and
be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans
sympathy ? How far^ it with those patriarchs of old
who lived for their nine centuries, and when were life’s
conditions so changed that, after three-score years and ten,
it became but a vexation and a burden ?
Getting no reply but Yes and No to his brief speeches,
poor Harry sat awhile on a couch opposite his aunt, who
shrugged her shoulders, had her back to her nephew, and
continued her game with the chaplain, Sampson sat
opposite Mr. Warrington, and could see that something
disturbed him. His face was very pale, and his countenance
disturbed and full of gloom. ‘ Something has happened
to him, ma’am,’ he whispered to the baroness.
‘ Bah ! ’ She shrugged her shoulders again, and continued
to deal her cards. ‘ What is the matter with you, sir ? ’
she at last said, at a pause in the game, ‘ that you have
such a dismal countenance ? Chaplain, that last game
makes us even, I think ! ’
Harry got up from his place. ‘ I am going on a journey :
I am come to bid you good-bye, aunt,’ he said, in a very
tragical voice.
‘ On a journey ! Are you going home to America ?
I mark the king, chaplain, and play him.’
‘ No,’ Harry said : he was not going to America yet :
he was going to the Isle of Wight for the present.
‘ Indeed ! — ^a lovely spot ! ’ says the baroness. ‘ Bon
jour, mon ami, et bon voyage T And she kissed a hand
to her nephew.
‘ I mayn’t come back for some time, aunt,’ he groaned
out.
‘ Indeed 1 We shall be inconsolable without you \
m THE VIRGINIANS
Unless you have a spade, Mr, Samj^n, the game is mine.
Good-bye, my child ! No more about your journey at
present : tell us about it when you come back ! ’ And she
gaily bade him farewell. He looked for a moment piteously
at her, and was gone.
‘Something grave has happened, madam,’ says the
chaplain,
‘ Oh ! The boy is always getting into scrapes ! I suppose
he has been falling in love with one of those country girls —
what are their names, Lamberts ? — with whom he is ever
dawdling about. He has been doing no good here for
some time. I am disappointed in him, really quite grieved
about him — I w^ill take two cards, if you please — ^again ? —
quite grieved. What do you think they say of his cousin —
the Miss Warrington who made eyes at him when she
thought he was a prize — ^they say the king has remarked
her, and the Yarmouth is caremng with rage. He, he ! —
those Methodistical Warringtons! They are not a bit
less worldly than their neighbours ; and, old as he is,
if the Grand Signior throw’s his pocket-handkerchief they
will jump to catch it ! ’
‘ All, madam ; how your ladyship knows the w’orld ! ’
sighs the chaplain. ‘ I propose, if you please ! ’
‘ I have lived long enough in it, Mr. Sampson, to know
something of it. ’Tis sadly selfish, my dear sir, sadly
selfish ; and everybody is struggling to pass his neighbour !
No, I can’t give you any more cards. You haven’t the
king ? I play queen, knave, and a ten , — & sadly selfish
world, indeed. And here comes my chocolate 1 ’
The more immediate interest of the cards entirely absorb
the old woman. The door shuts out her nephew and his
cares. Under his hat, he bears them into the street, and
paces the dark town for a while.
‘ Good God I ’ he thinks, ‘ what a miserable fellow I am,
and w'hat a spendthrift of my life I have been ! I sit
silent with George and his friends. I am not clever and
witty as he is. I am only a burthen to him : and, if I
would help him ever so much, don’t know how’. My
Aunt Lambert’s kindness never tires, but I begin
to be ashamed of trying it. Why, even Hetty can’t help
turning on me ; and when she tells me I am idle and should
be doing something, ought I to be angry ? The rest
have left me. There’s my cousins and uncle and my lady
ABMA VIRUMQUE
esi
my aunt, they have shown me the cold shoulder this long
time. They didn’t even ask me to Norfolk when they
w^ent down to the country, and offer me so much as a day’s
partridge shooting. I can’t go to Castlewood — ^after
what has happened : I should break that scoundrel William’s
bones ; and, faith, am w^ell out of the place altogether.’
He laughs a fierce laugh as he recalls his ^ventur^
since he has been in Europe. Money, friends, pleasure,
all have passed away, and he feels the past like a dream.
He strolls into White’s Chocolate-house, where the waiters
have scarce seen him for a year. The Parliament is up.
Gentlemen are away ; there is not even any play going on ; —
not that he would join it, if there were. He has but a few
pieces in his pocket ; George’s drawer is open, and he
may take w’hat money he likes thence ; but very, very
sparingly will he avail himself of his brother’s repeated
invitation. He sits and drinks his glass in moody silence.
Two or three officers of the Guards enter from St. James’s.
He knew them in former days, and the young men, who
have been already dining and drinking on guard, insist
on more drink at the club. The other battalion of their
regiment is at Winchester : it is going on this great expedi-
tion, no one knows whither, w^ich everybody is talking
about. Cursed fate that they do not belong to the other
battalion ; and must stay and do duty in ^Dndon and at
Kensington I There is Webb, who was of their regiment :
he did w’ell to exchange his company in the Coldstreams
for the lieutenant-colonelcy of the thirty-second. He will
be of the expedition. Why, everybody is going ; and the
young gentlemen mention a score of names of men of the
first birth and fashion, who have volunteered. ‘ It ain’t
Hanoverians this time, commanded by the big prince,’
says one young gentleman (whose relatives may have
been Tories forty years ago) — " it’s Englishmen, with the
Guards at the head of ’em, and a Marlborough for a leader I
Will the Frenchmen ever stand against them? No, by
George, they are irresistible.’ And a fresh bowl is called,
and loud toasts are drunk to the success of the expedition.
Mr. Warrington, w^ho is a cup too low, the young guards-
men say, walks aw^ay w^hen they are not steady enough to
be able to follow him, thinks over the matter on his w^ay
to his lodgings, and lies thinking of it all through the
night.
658
THE VIRGINIANS
* What is it, my boy ? ’ asks Geoi^e Warrington of his
brother, when the latter enters his chamber very early
on a blushing May morning.
‘ I want a little money out of the draw^er,’ says Harry,
looking at his brother. ‘ I am sick and tired of I^ndon.’
‘ Go^ Heavens ! Can anybody be tired of London ? ’
George asks, who has reasons for thinking it the most
delightful place in the world.
‘ I am for one. I am sick and ill,’ says Harry.
* You and Hetty have been quarrelling ? ’
‘ She don’t care a penny piece about me, nor I for her
neither,’ says Harry, nodding his head. ‘ But I am ill,
and a little country air will do me good,’ and he mentions
how he thinks of going to visit Mr. Webb in the Isle of
Wight, and how a Portsmouth coach starts from Holbom.
* There’s the till, Harry,’ says George, pointing from his
bed. ‘ Put your hand in, and take what you wSl. What
a lovely morning, and how fre^ the B^m-d House garden
looks.’
‘ God bless you, brother ! ’ Harry says.
‘ Have a good time, Harry ! ’ and down goes George’s
head on the pillow again, and he takes his pencil and note-
book from under his bolster, and falls to polishing his verses,
as Harry, with his cloak over his shoulder and a little valise
in his hand, walks to the inn in Holbom whence the Ports-
mouth Machine starts.
659
CHAPTER LXIII
MELPOMENE
DRGE Warrington by no
means allowed his legal
studies to obstruct his
comfort and pleasures, or
interfere with his precious
health. Madam Esmond
had pointed out to him in
her letters that though he
w’ore a student’s gown,
andsat down with a crowd
of nameless people to hall-
commons, he had himself
a name, and a very ancient
one, to support, and could
take rank with the first
persons at home or in his
own country ; and desired
that he wnuld study as a
gentleman, not a mere professional drudge. With this in-
junction the young man complied obediently enough : so
that he may be said not to have belonged to the rank and
file of the law, but may be considered to have been a
volunteer in her service, like some young gentlemen of
whom we have just heard. Though not so exacting as
she since has become — ^though she allowed her disciples
much more leisure, much more pleasure, much more
punch, much more frequenting of coffee-houses and
holiday-making, than she admits nowadays, w^hen she
scarce gives her votaries time for amusement, recreation,
instruction, sleep, or dinner — ^the law a hundred years
ago was still a jealous mistress, and demanded a pretty
exclusive attention. Murray, w^e are told, might have
been an Ovid, but he preferred to be lord chief justice,
and to wear ermine instead of bays. Perhaps Mr.
Warrington might have risen to a peerage and the wool-
sack, had he studied very long and assiduously, — ^had he
been a dexterous courtier, and a favourite of attorneys :
660
THE VIRGINIANS
had he been other than lie was, in a -word. He behaved
to Themis with a very decent respect and attention ; but he
loved letters more than law alw’ays ; and the blackletter
of Chaucer w^'as infinitely more agreeable to him than
the Gk)thic pages of Hale and CJoke.
Letters were loved indeed in those quaint times, and
authors were actually authorities. Gentlemen appealed
to Virgil or Lucan in the Courts or the House of Commons.
What said Statius, Juvenal — ^let alone TuUy or Tacitus —
on such-and-such a point ? Their reign is over now, the
good old Heathens : the worship of Jupiter and Juno
is not more out of mode than the cultivation of Pagan
poetry or ethics. The age of economists and calculators
has succeeded, and Tooke’s Pantheon is deserted and
ridiculous. Now and then, perhaps, a Stanley kills a kid,
a Gladstone hangs up a wreath, a Lytton bums incense,
in honour of the Olympians. But what do they care at
Lambeth, Birmingham, the Tower Hamlets, for the ancient
rites, divinities, w’orship ? Who the plague are the Muses,
and w’hat is the use of all that Greek and Latin rubbish ?
What is Elicon, and who cares ? Who w’^as Thalia, pray,
and what is the length of her * ? Is Melpomene’s name
in three syllable or four ? [And do you know from whose
design I stole that figure of Tragedy w’hich adorns the
initial G of this chapter ?]
Now, it has been said how Mr. George in his youth,
and in the long leisure which he enjoyed at home, and during
his imprisonment in the French fort on the banks of Monon-
gahela, had whiled aw’ay his idleness by paying court to
Melpomene ; and the result of their union was a tragedy,
which has been omitted in Bell’s Theatre, though I dare say
it is no worse than some of the pieces printed there. Most
young men pay their respects to the Tragic Muse first,
as they fall in love with women who are a great deal older
than themselves. Let the candid reader own, if ever he
had a literary turn, that his ambition w’as of the very
highest, and that however in his riper age he might come
down in his pretensions, and think that to translate an
ode of Horace, or to turn a song of Waller or Prior into
decent alcaics or sapphics, w^as about the utmost of his
capability, tragedy and epic only did his green unknowing
youth engage, and no prize but the highest was fit for him.
George Warrington, then, on coming to London, attended
MELPOMENE
661
the theatrical performances at both houses, frequented
the theatrical coffee-houses, and heard the opinions of
the critics, and might be seen at the ‘ Bedford ’ between, the
plays, or supping at the ‘ Cecil ’ along with the wits and actors
when the performances were over. Here he gradually
became acquainted with the players and such of the wTiters
and poets as were kno\?m to the public. The tough old
MacWin, the frolicsome Foote, the vivacious Hippisley,
the sprightly Mr. Garrick himself, might occasionally be
seen at these houses of entertainment ; and our gentleman,
by his wit and modesty, as w’ell, perhaps, as for the high
character for wealth which he Assessed, came to be very
much liked in the coffee-house circles, and found that the
actors would drink a bowl of punch with him, and the
critics sup at his expense with great affability. To be
on terms of intimacy with an author or an actor has been
an object of delight to many a young man ; actually to
hob and nob with Bobadil or Henry the Fifth or Alexander
the Great, to accept a pinch out of Aristarchus’s own box,
to put Juliet into her coach, or hand Monimia to her chair,
are privileges which w’ould delight most young men of a
poetic turn ; and no wonder George Warrington loved
the theatre. Then he had the satisfaction of thinking
that his mother only half approved of plays and playhouses,
and of feasting on fruit forbidden at home. He gave
more than one elegant entertainment to the players, and
it was even said that one or tw’o distinguished geniuses
had condescended to borrow money of him.
And as he polished and added new’ beauties to his master-
piece, we may be sure that he took advice of certain friends
of his, and that they gave him applause and counsel. Mr.
Spencer, his new acquaintance of the Temple, gave a break-
fast at his chambers in Fig Tree Court, when Mr. Warrington
read part of his play, and the gentlemen present pronounced
that it had uncommon merit. Even the learned Mr.
Johnson, who w’as invited, was good enough to say that
the piece showed talent. It warred against the unities,
to be sure ; but these had been violated by other authors,
and Mr. Warrington might sacrifice them as w^ell as another.
There w’as in Mr. W.’s tragedy a something which reminded
him both of Coriolanus and Othello, " And two very good
things too, sir I ’ the author pleaded. ‘ Well, w^ell, there
was no doubt on that point ; and ’tis certain your cata-
662
THE VIRGINIANS
strophe is terrible, just, and being in part true, is not the
less awful,’ remarks Mr. Spencer.
Now the plot of !Mr. Warrington’s tragedy was quite
full indeed of battle and murder. A favourite book of his
grandfather had been the life of old George Erundsberg
of Mindelheim, a colonel of foot-folk in the Imperial
service at Pavia fight, and during the wars of the Constable
Bourbon : and one of Frundsberg’s military companions
was a certain Carpzow, or Carpezan, w’hom our friend
selected as his trag^y hero.
His first act, as it at present stands in Sir George Warring-
ton’s manuscript, is supposed to take place before a convent
on the Rhine, which the Lutherans, under Carpezan, are
besieging. A godless gang these Lutherans are. They
have pulled the beards of Roman friars, and tom the veils
of hundreds of religious women. A score of these are
trembling within the walls of the convent yonder, of which
the garrison, unless the expected succours arrive before
midday, has promised to surrender. MeanwMe there
is armistice, and the sentries within look on with hungry
eyes, as the soldiers and camp people gamble on the grass
before the gate. Twelve o’clock, dmg, ding, dong I it
sounds upon the convent bell. No succours have arrived.
Open gates, warder I and give admission to the famous
Protestant hero, the terror of Turks on the Danube, and
Papists in the Lombard plains — Colonel Carpezan! See,
here he comes, clad in complete steel, his hammer of battle
over his shoulder, with which he has battered so many
infidel sconces, his flags displayed, his trampets blowing.
‘ No rudeness, my men,’ says Carpezan, ' the wine is yours,
and the convent larder and cellar are good : the church
plate shall be melted : any of the garrison who choose to take
service with Gaspar Carpezan are welcome, and shall have
good pay- No insult to the religious ladies 1 I have pro-
mised them a safe-conduct, and he who lays a finger on
them, hangs ! Mind that, provost marshal ! ’ The provost
marshal, a huge fellow in a red doublet, nods his head.
‘ We shall see more of that provost marshal, or execu-
tioner,’ Mr. Spencer explains to his guests.
‘A very agreeable acquaintance, I am sure, — shall
be delighted to meet the gentleman again 1 ’ says Mr.
Johnson, wa^ng his head over his tea. "This scene
of the mercenaries, the camp-followers, and their wild
MELPOMENE
663
sports, is novel and stirring, Mr. Warrington, and I make
you my compliments on it. The colonel has gone into
the convent, I think ? Now let us hear what he is going
to do there.’
The abbess, and one or two of her oldest ladies, make
their appearance before the conqueror. Conqueror as
he is, they beard him in their sacred halls. They have
heard of his violent behaviour in conventual establishments
before. That hammer, which he always carries in action,
has smashed many sacred images in religious houses.
Pounds and pounds of convent plate is he known to have
melted, the sacrilegious plunderer ! No wonder the
abbess-princess of St. Mary’s, a lady of violent prejudices,
free language, and noble birth, has a dislike to the low-
born heretic who lords it in her convent, and tells Carpezan
a bit of her mind, as the phrase is. This scene, in which
the lady gets somewhat better of the colonel, was liked
not a little by Mr. Warrington’s audience at the Temple.
Terrible as he might be in war, Carpezan w^as shaken at
fibrst by the abbess’s brisk opening charge of words ; and,
conqueror as he was, seemed at first to be conquered
by his actual prisoner. But such an old soldier was not
to be beaten ultimately by any woman. ‘ Pray, madam,’
says he, ‘how many ladies are there in your convent,
for whom my people shall provide conveyance ? ’ The
abbess, with a look of much trouble and anger, says that,
besides herself, the noble sisters of St. Mary’s House are
twenty — twenty-three. She w^as going to say twenty-four,
and now says twenty-three ? ‘ Ha ! why this hesitation ?
asks Captain Ulric, one of Carpezan’s gayest officers.
The dark chief pulls a letter from his pocket. ‘ I require
from you, madam,’ he says, sternly, to the lady abbess,
‘ the body of the noble lady Sybilla of Hoya. Her brother
w’as my favourite captain, slain by my side, in the Milanese.
By his death, she becomes heiress of his lands. ’Tis said
a greedy uncle brought her hither ; and fast immured
the lady against her will. The damsel shall herself pro-
nounce her fate — ^to stay a cloistered sister of St. Mary’s,
or to return to home and liberty, as Lady Sybil, Baroness
of .’ Ha ! The abbess was greatly disturbed by this
question. She says, haughtily : ‘ There is no Lady Sybil
in this house : of which every inmate is under your pro-
tection, and sworn to go free. The Sister Agnes was
6&4
THE VIRGINIANS
a nun professed, and what was her land and wealth revert
to this Order.’
‘ Give me straightway the body of the Lady Sybil of
Hoya I ’ roars Carpezan, in great wTath. ‘ If not, I make
a signal to my Reiters, and give you and your convent
up to w'ar.’
‘ Faith, if I lead the storm, and have my right, ’tis not
my lady abbess that I’ll choose’ (says Captain Ulric),
‘ but rather some plump, smiling, red-lipped maid like —
like ’ Here, as he, the sly fellow, is looking under the
veils of the two attendant nuns, the stem abbess cries,
‘ Silence, fellow, with thy ribald talk ! The lady, warrior,
whom you ask of me is passed away from sin, temptation,
vanity, and three days since our Sister Agnes — died,^
At this announcement Carpezan is immensely agitated.
The abbess calls upon the chaplain to confirm her statement.
Ghastly and pale, the old man has to own that three days
since the wretch^ Sister Agnes was buried.
This is too much I In the pocket of his coat of mail
Carpezan has a letter from Sister Agnes herself, in which
she announces that she is going to be buried indeed, but
in an oublietie of the convent, where she may either be
kept on water and bread, or die starved outright. He
seizes the unflinching abbess by the arm, w’hilst Captain
Ulric lays hold of the chaplain by the throat. The colonel
blows a blast upon his horn : in rush his furious Lanzknechts
from without. Crash, bang ! They knock the convent
walls about. And in the midst of flames, screams, and
slaughter, w^ho is presently brought in by Carpezan himself,
and fainting on his shoulder, but Sybilla herself ? A little
sister nun (that gay one with the red lips) had pointed
out to the colonel and Ulric the way to Sister Agnes’s
dungeon, and, indeed, had been the means of making her
situation known to the Lutheran chief.
‘The convent is suppressed with a vengeance,’ says
Mr. Warrington- ‘ We end our first act with the burning
of the place, the roars of triumph of the soldiery, and the
outcries of the nuns. They had best go change their
dresses immediately, for they will have to be court ladies
in the next act — ^as you wiU see.’ Here the gentlemen
talked the matter over. If the piece were to be done at
Drury Lane, Mrs. Pritchard would hardly like to be lady
abb^y as she doth but appear in the first act. Miss
MELPOMENE
665
Pritchard might make a pretty Sybilla, and Miss Gates
the attendant nun. Mr. Garrick was scarce tall enough
for CSarpezan — though, when he is excited, nobody ever
thinks of him but as big as a grenadier. Mr. Johnson
owns Woodward will be a good Ulric, as he plays the
Mercutio parts very gaily — ^and so, by one and t’other
the audience fancies the play already on the boards, and
casts the characters.
In act the second, Carpezan has married Sybilla. He
has enriched himself in the w’ars, has been ennobled by the
emperor, and lives at his castle on the Danube in state
and splendour.
But, truth to say, though married, rich, and ennobled,
the Lord Carpezan w’as not happy. It may be that in
his wild life, as leader of condottieri on both sides, he had
committed crimes which agitated his mind with remorse.
It may be that his rough soldier manners consorted ill
with his imperious high-bom bride. She led him such
a life — I am narrating as it were the Warrington manuscript,
which is too long to print in entire — taunting him with
his low birth, his vulgar companions, whom the old soldier
loved to see about him, and so forth — that there were
times when he rather wished that he had never rescued
this lovely, quarrelsome, waywurd vixen from the ouhlieUe
out of which he fished her. After the bustle of the first
act this is a quiet one, and passed chiefly in quarrelling
between the Baron and Baroness Carpezan, until horns
blow, and it is announced that the young King of Bohemia
and Hungary is coming hunting that way.
Act III is passed at Prague, whither his Majesty has
invited Lord Carpezan and his wife, with noble offers of
preferment to the Baron. From baron he shall be promoted
to be count, from colonel he shall be general-in-chief.
His wife is the most brilliant and fascinating of all the
ladies of the Court — and as for Carpzoff
^ Oh, stay — I have it — ^I know your story, sir, now,’
says Mr. Johnson. ‘ ’Tis in Meteranus, in the Theatrum
Universum. I read it in Oxford as a boy — Carpezanus
or Carpzoff
‘That is the fourth act,’ says Mr. Warrington. In the
fourth act the young king’s attentions towards Sybilla
grow more and more marked ; but her husband, battling
against his jealousy, long refuses to yield to it, until his
666
THE VIRGINIANS
wife’s criminality is put beyond a doubt — ^and here he read
the act, which closes with the terrible tragedy which
actually happened. Being convinced of his wife’s guilt,
Oarpezan caused the executioner w'ho follow^ed his regiment
to slay her in her own palace. And the curtain of the act
falls just after the drea^ul deed is done, in a side chamber
illuminated by the moon shining through a great oriel
window, under w’hich the king comes with his lute, and
plays the song w^hich was to be the signal between him and
his guilty victim.
This song (wTit in the ancient style, and repeated in the
piece, being sung in the third act previously at a great
festival given by the king and queen) was pronounced
by Mr. Johnson to be a happy imitation of Mr. Waller’s
manner, and its gay rep^ition at the moment of guilt,
murder, and horror, very much deepened the tragic gloom
of the scene.
‘ But whatever came afterwards ? ’ he asked. ‘ I remem-
ber in the Thmtrumy Carpezan is said to have been taken
into favour again by CJount Mansfield, and doubtless to
have murdered other folks on the Reformed side.’
Here our poet has departed from historic ' truth. In
the fifth act of Carpezan King Louis of Hungary and
Bohemia (sufficiently terror-stricken, no doubt, by the
sanguinary termination of his intrigue) has received word
that the Emperor Solyman is invading his Hungarian
dominions. Enter two noblemen who relate how, in the
council which the king held upon the news, the injured
Carpezan rushed infuriated into the royal presence, broke
his sword, and flung it at the king’s feet — ^along with a glove
which he dared him to wear, and which he swore he would
one day claim. After that wild challenge the rebel fled
from Prague, and had not since been heard of ; but it
was reported that he had joined the Turkish invader,
assumed the turban, and was now in the camp of the
sultan, whose white tents glance across the river yonder,
and against whom the king was now" on his march. Then
the king comes to his tent with his generals, prepares his
order of battle, and dismisses them to their posts, keeping
by his side an aged and faithful knight, his master of the
horse, to whom he expresses his repentance for his past
crimes, his esteem for his good and injured queen, and
his determination to meet the day’s battle like a man.
MELPOMENE
mi
‘ What is this field called ? ’
* Mohacz, my liege ! ’ says the old warrior, adding the
remark that ‘Ere set of sun, Mohacz will see a battle
bravely won’.
Trumpets and alarms now sound ; they are the cymbals
and barbaric music of the janizaries : we are in the Turkish
camp, and yonder, surrounded by turbaned chiefs, walks
the Sultan Solyman’s friend, the conqueror of Rhodes,
the redoubted grand vizier.
Who is that warrior in an Eastern habit, but with a
glove in his cap ? ’Tis Carpezan. Even Solyman knew
his courage and ferocity as a soldier. He know^s the ord-
nance of the Hungarian host : in what arms King Louis
is weakest : how his cavalry, of w^hich the shock is tremen-
dous, should be received, and inveigled into yonder morass,
where certain death may await them — ^he prays for a com-
mand in the front, and as near as possible to the place
where the traitor King Louis will engage. ‘ ’Tis well,’
says the grim vizier, ‘ our invincible emperor surveys the
battle from yonder tower. At the end of the day, he will
know how to reward your valour.’ The signal-guns fixe —
the trumpets blow — ^the Turkish captains retire, vowing
death to the infidel, and eternal fidelity to the sultan.
And now the battle begins in earnest, and with those
various incidents which the lover of the theatre knoweth.
Christian knights and Turkish warriors clash and skirmish
over the stage. Continued alarms are sounded. Troops
on both sides advance and retreat. Carpezan, with his
glove in his cap, and his dreadful hammer smashing all
before him, rages about the field, calling for King Louis.
The renegade is about to slay a warrior who faces him, but
recognizing young Ulric,his ex-captain, he drops the uplifted
hammer, and bids him fly, and think of Carpezan. He
is softened at seeing his young friend, and thinking of
former times w^hen they fought and* conquered together
in the cause of Protestantism. Ulric bids him to return,
but of course that is now out of the question. They fight.
Ulrie will have it, and down he goes under the hammer.
The renegade melts in sight of his wounded comrade,
when who appears but King Louis, his plumes torn, his
sword hacked, his shield dented with a thousand blows
which he has received and delivered during the day’s
battle. Ha ! wfio is this V The guilty monarch would
THE VIRGINIANS
turn away (perhaps Macbeth may have done so before),
but Carpezan is on him. All his softness is gone. He
rages like a fury. ‘ An equal fight ! ’ he roars. ‘ A traitor
against a traitor ! Stand, King Louis ! False king,
false knight, false friend — ^by this glove in my helmet,
I challenge you ! ’ And he tears the guilty token out of
his cap, and flings it at the king.
Of course they set to, and the monarch falls under the
terrible arm of the man whom he has injured. He dies,
uttering a few incoherent words of repentance, and Carpezan,
leaning upon his murderous mace, utters a heartbroken
soliloquy over the royal corpse. The Turkish warriors have
gathered meanwhile : the dreadful day is their own. Yonder
stands the dark vizier, surrounded by his janizaries, whose
bows and swords are tired of drinking death. He surveys
the renegade standing over the corpse of the king.
‘ Oiristian renegade ! ’ he says, ‘ Allah has given us a great
victory. The arms of the sublime emperor are everywhere
triumphant. The Oiristian king is slain by you.’
‘ Peace to his soul 1 He died like a good knight,’ gasps
Ulric, himself dying on the field.
‘In this day’s battle,’ the grim vizier continues, ‘no
man hath comported himself more bravely than you.
You are made Bassa of Transylvania ! Advance, bowmen
— ^Fire ! ’
An arrow quivers in the breast of Carpezan.
‘ Bassa of Transylvania, you were a traitor to your king,
who lies murdered by your hand ! ’ continues the grim
vizier. ‘ You contribute more than any soldier to this
day’s great victory. ’Tis thus my sublime emperor meetly
rewards you. Sound trumpets ! We march for Vienna
to-night ! ’
And the curtain drops as Carpezan, crawling towards
his dying comrade, kisses his hands, and gasps —
‘ Forgive me, Ulric ! ’
When Mr. Warrington has finished readmg his tragedy,
he turns round to Mr. Johnson, modestly, and asks, —
‘ What say you, sir ? Is there any chance for me ? ’
But the opinion of this most eminent critic is scarce
to be given, for Mr. Johnson had been asleep for some
time, and frankly owned that he had lost the latter part
of the play.
MELPOMENE
The little auditory begins to hum and stir as the noise
of the speaker ceased. George may have been very nervous
when he first commenced to read ; but everybody allows
that he read the last two acts uncommonly w^ell, and makes
him a compliment upon his matter and manner. Perhaps
everybody is in good humour because the piece has come
to an end. Mr. Spencer’s servant hands about refreshing
drinks. The Templars speak out their various opinions
whilst they sip the negus. They are a choice band of
critics, familiar with the pit of the theatre, and they treat
Mr. Warrington’s play with the gravity which such a subject
demands.
Mr. Fountain suggests that the vizier should not say
* Fire ! ’ when he bids the archers kill Carpezan, — as you
certainly don’t fire with a bow and arrows. A note is taken
of the objection.
Mr. Figtree, who is of a sentimental turn, regrets that
Ulric could not be saved, and married to the comic heroine.
‘ Nay, sir, there was an utter annihilation of the Hun-
garian army at Mohacz,’ says Mr. Johnson, ‘and Ulric
must take his knock on the head with the rest. He could
only be saved by flight, and you w^ouldn’t have a hero
run away I Pronounce sentence of death against Captain
Ulric, but kill him with honours of war.’
Messrs. Essex and Tanfield wonder to one another who
is this queer-looking 'pui whom Spencer has invited, and
who contradicts everybody ; and they suggest a boat
up the river and a little fresh air after the fatigues of the
tragedy.
The general opinion is decidedly favourable to Mr.
Warrington’s performance; and Mr. Johnson’s opinion,
on which he sets a special value, is the most favourable
of aU. Perhaps Mr. Johnson is not sorry to compliment
a young gentleman of fashion and figure like Mr. W. ‘ Up
to the death of the heroine,’ he says, ‘ I am frankly with
you, sir. And I may speak as a playwright who have
killed my own heroine, and had my share of the 'plausus
in theatro. To hear your own lines nobly delivered to an
applauding house, is indeed a noble excitement. I like
to see a young man of good name and lineage who con-
descends to think that the Tragic Muse is not below^ his
advances. It was to a sordid roof that I invited her, and
I asked her to rescue me from poverty and squalor. Happy
670
THE YIRGmAKS
you, sir, who can meet her upon equal terms, and can afford
to marry her without a portion ! "
* I doubt whether the greatest genius is not debased who
has to make a bargain with Poetry/ remarks Mr. Spencer.
‘ Nay, sir,^ Mr. Johnson answered, ‘ I doubt if many
a great genius w’ouid work at all without bribes and neces-
siti^; and so a man had better marry a poor Muse for
good and all, for better or w'orse, than dally with a rich
one. I make you my compliment of your play, Mr. War-
rington, and if you want an introduction to the stage,
shall be very happy if I can induce my friend Mr. Garrick
to present you.’
‘ Mr. Garrick shall be his sponsor,’ cried the florid Mr. Fig-
tree. ‘Melpomene shall be his godmother, and he shall
have the witches’ cauldron in Macbeth for a christening
font.’
‘ Sir, I neither said font nor godmother,’ remarks the
man of letters. ‘ I would have no play contrary to morals
or religion : nor, as I conceive, is Mr. Warrington’s piece
otherwise than friendly to them. Vice is chastised, as it
should be, even in kings, though perhaps w’e judge of
their temptations too lightly. Revenge is punished — ^as not
to be lightly exercised by our limited notion of justice.
It may have been Carp^an’s wife who perverted the king,
and not the king who led the woman astray. At any
rate, Louis is rightly humiliated for his crime, and the
renegade most justly executed for his. I wish you a good
afternoon, gentlemen ! ’ And with these remarks, the great
author took his leave of the company.
Toward the close of the reading, General Lambert had
made his appearance at Mr. Spencer’s chambers, and had
listened to the latter part of the tragedy. The performance
over, he and George took their way to the latter’s lodgings
in the first place, and subsequently to the general’s own
house, where the young author was expected, in order to
recount the reception w^hich his play had met from his
Temple critics.
At Mr. Warrington’s apartments in Southampton 'Row,
they found a letter awaiting George, which the latter placed
in his pocket unread, so that he might proceed immediately
with & compsaaion to Soho. We may be sure the ladies
there were eager to know about the Garpezan’^s fate in the
morning’s small rehearsal. Hetty said George was so shy,
MELPOMENE
671
that perhaps it would be better for all parties if some
other person had read the play : Theo, on the contrary,
cried out :
‘ Read it, indeed ! Who can read a poem better than
the author who feels it in his heart ? And George had his
whole heart in the piece ! ’
Mr. Lambert very likely thought that somebody else’s
w’hole heart was in the piece, too, but did not utter this
opinion to Miss Theo.
‘ I think Harry w^ould look very well in your figure of
a prince,’ says the general. ‘ That scene where he takes
leave of his wife before departing for the wars reminds me
of your brother’s manner not a little.’
‘ Oh, papa ! surely Mr. Warrington himself would act
the prince’s part best ! ’ cries Miss Theo.
‘ And be deservedly slain in battle at the end ? ’ asks
the father of the house.
‘ I did not say that ; only that Mr. George would make
a very good prince, papa ! ’ cries Miss Theo.
‘ In which case he would find a suitable princess, I have
no doubt. What news of your brother Harry ? ’
George, who has been thinking about theatrical triumphs ;
about monummtum aere perennius ; about lilacs ; about
love whispered and tenderly accepted, remembers that he
has a letter from Harry in his pocket, and gaily produces it.
‘ Let us hear what Mr. Truant says for himself, Aunt
Lambert ! ’ cries George, breaking the seal.
Why is he so disturbed, as he reads the contents of his
letter ? Why do the women look at him with alarmed
eyes ? And why, above all, is Hetty so pale ?
‘ Here is the letter,’ says George, and begins to read it.
Rydb, June 1st, 1758.
I did not tell my dearest George what I hoped and intended,
when I left home on Wednesday. ’Twas to see Mr. Webb at Ports-
mouth or the Isle of Wight, wherever his Reg^. was, and if need was
to go down on my knees to him to take me as volunteer with him on
the Expedition. I took boat from Portsmouth, where I learned
that he was with our regiment incampt at the village of Ryde. Was
received by him most kindly, and my petition granted out of hand.
That is why I say our regiment. We are eight gentlemen- volunteers
with Mr. Webb, all men of birth, and good fortunes except poor
me, who don’t deserve one. We are to mess with the officers ; we
take the right of the collumn, and have always the right to he in front.
672
THE VIRGINIANS
in an hour we embark on hoard his Majesty’s ship the Bodies
of 60 guns, while our Commodore’s, Mr. Howe’s, is the Essex^ 70.
His squadron is about ^ ships, and I should think 100 transports
at least Though ’tis a secret expedition, we make no doubt France
is our destination — where I hope to see my friends the Monsieurs
once more, and win my colours a la poinct de mon epee, as we used to
say in Cfetnada. Perhaps my service as interpreter may be useful ;
I speaking the language not so well as some one I know, but better
than most here.
I scarce venture to write to our mother to tell her of this step.
Will you, who have a coxing tongue will wheaMe any erne, write to
her as soon as you have finisht the famous tradgedy ? Will you give
my affectionate respects to dear General Lambert and ladies ; and
if any accident should happen, I know you will take care of poor
Gumbo as belonging to my dearest best George’s most affectionate
brother,
Henby E. Waebihqton.
PS. — Love to all at home when you write, including Dempster,
Mountain, and Fanny M., and all the people, and duty to my honored
mother, wishing I had pleased her better. And^if I said anything
unkind to dear Miss Hest^ Lambert, I know she will forgive me,
and pray God bless all. — H. E. W.
To G. Esmohd Wabedstoton, E^q.,
At Mr. Scrace’s house in ^uthampton Row,
Opposite Bedford House Gardens, London.
He has not read the last words with a very steady voice.
Mr. Lambert sits silent, though not a little moved. Theo
and her mother look at one another ; but Hetty remains
with a cold face and a stricken heart. She thinfa, ‘ He is
gone to danger, perhaps to death, and it \vas I sent him I ’
673
CHAPTER LXIV
IN WHICH HAERY LIVES TO FIGHT ANOTHER HAY
HE trusty Gumbo could not
console himself for the
departure of his beloved
master : at least, to judge
from his tears and howds on
first hearing the news of
Mr. Harry’s enlistment, you
would have thought the
negro’s heart must break
at the separation. j^3’o
w’onder he went for sym-
pathy to the maidservants
at Mr. Lambert’s lodgings.
Wherever that dusky youth
'was, he sought comfort in
the society of females.
Their fair and tender
bosoms knew how to feel pity for the poor African, and
the darkness of Gumbo’s complexion was no more repulsive
to them than Othello’s to Desdemona. I believe Europe
has never been so squeamish in regard to Africa, as a cer-
tain other respected Quarter. Nay, some Africans — witness
the Chevalier de St. Georges, for instance — ^have been
notorious favourites with the fair sex.
So, in his humbler walk, was Mr. Gumbo. The Lambert
servants wept freely in his company : the maids kindly
considered him not only as Mr. Harry’s man, but their
brother. Hetty could not help laughing when she found
Gumbo roaring because his master had gone a volumteer,
as he called it, and had not taken him. He was ready
to save Master Harry’s life any day, and would have done
it, and had himself cut in twenty tousand hundred pieces
for Master Harry, that he would ! Meanwhile, Nature
must be supported, and he condescended to fortify her by
large supplies of beer and cold meat in the kitchen. That
he was greedy, idle, and told lies, is certain ; but yet
Hetty gave him half a crown, and was especially kind to
VIRGINIANS Z
674
THE VmGINIAlSIS
him. Her tongue, that was wont toVag so pertly, was
so gentle now, that you might fancy it had never made
a joke. She moved about the house mum and meek. She
was humble to mamma, thankful to John and Betty when
they waited at dinner ; patient to Polly when the latter
pulled her hair in combing it ; long-suffering when Charley
from school trod on her to^, or deranged her workbox :
silent in papa’s company, — oh, such a transmogrified little
Hetty ! If papa had ordered her to roast the leg of mutton,
or walk to^ church arm-in-arm with Gumbo, she would
have made a curtsy, and said, ‘ Yes, if you please, dear
papa ! ’ Leg of mutton ! What sort of meal were some
poor volunteers having, with the cannon-balls flying about
their heads ? Church ? When it comes to the prayer in
time of war, oh, how her knees smite together as she kneels,
and hides her head in the pew ! She holds down her head
when the parson reads out ‘ Thou shalt do no murder ’
from the communion-rail, and fandies he must be looking
at her. How she thinks of all taravellers by land or by
water I How she sickens as she runs to the paper to read
if there is news of the expedition 1 How she watches
papa when he comes home firom his Ordnance Office, and
looks in his face to see if there is good news or bad ! Is
he well ? Is he made a general yet ? Is he wounded and
made a prisoner ? ah, me ! or, perhaps, are both his legs
taken off by one shot, like that pensioner they saw in
Chelsea Garden t’other day ? She would go on wooden
legs all her life, if his can but bring him safe home ; at
least, she ought never to get up off her knees until he is
returned. Haven’t you heard of people, Theo,’ says she,
‘ whose hair has grown grey in a single night ? I shouldn’t
wonder if mine did, — shouldn’t wonder in the least.’ And
she looks in the glass to ascertain that phenomenon.
‘ Hetty dear, you used not to be so nervous when papa
was away in Minorca,’ remarks Theo.
‘ Ah, Theo ! one may very well see that George is not
with the army, but safe at home,’ rejoins Hetty ; whereat
the elder sister blushes, and looks very pensive. Au fait,
if Mr. George had been in the army, that, you see, would
have been another pair of boots. Meanwhile, we don’t
intend to harrow anybody’s kind feelings any longer, but
may as well state that Harry is, for the present, as safe
as any of the Life Guards at Regent’s Park Barracks.
HARRY LIVES TO EIGHT ANOTHER DAY 677
The first expedition in which our gallant volunteer was
engaged may be called successful, but certainly was not
glorious. The British Lion, or any other lion, cannot
always have a worthy enemy to combat, or a battle-royal
to deliver. Suppose he goes forth in quest of a tiger who
won’t come, and lays his paws on a goose, and gobbles
him up ? Lions, we know, must live, like any other animals.
But suppose, advancing into the forest in search of the
tiger aforesaid, and bellowing his challenge of war, he espies
not one, but six tigers coming tow’ards him ? Iliis mani-
festly is not his game at all. He puts his tail betw'een
his royal legs, and retreats into his own snug den as quickly
as he may. Were he to attempt to go and fight six tigers,
you might write that Lion down an Ass.
Now, Harry Warrington’s first feat of war w’as in this
wise. He and about 13,000 other fighting men embarked
in various ships and transports on the 1st of June, from
the Isle of Wight, and at daybreak on the 5th the fleet stood
in to the Bay of Cancale in Brittany. For awhile he and
the gentlemen volunteers had the pleasure of examining
the French coast from their ships, whilst the commander-
in-chief and the commodore reconnoitred the bay in a cutter.
Cattle were seen, and some dragoons, w’ho trotted off into
the distance ; and a little fort with a couple of guns had
the audacity to fire at his grace of Marlborough and the
commodore in the cutter. By two o’clock the whole
British fleet w^as at anchor, and signal w^as made for all
the grenadier companies of eleven regiments to embark on
board flat-bottomed boats and assemble round the com-
modore’s ship, the Essex, Meanwhile, Mr. How^e, hoisting
his broad pennant on board the Success frigate, w’ent in
as near as possible to shore, follow'ed by the other frigates,
to protect the landing of the troops ; and now, with Lord
George Sackville and General Dury in command, the gentle-
men volunteers, the grenadier companies, and three batta-
lions of guards pulled to shore.
The gentlemen volunteers could not do any heroic deed
upon this occasion, because the French, w’ho should have
stayed to fight them, ran aw^ay, and the frigates having
silenced the fire of the little fort which had disturbed the
reconnaissance of the commander-in-chief, the army pre-
sently assaulted it, taking the w^hole garrison prisoner, and
shooting him in the leg. Indeed he was but one old gentle-
ets
THE YlEGINIANS
man who gallantly had fired his two guns, and who told
his conquerors, ‘ If every Frenchman had acted like me,
you would not have landed at Cancale at all.’
The advance detachment of invaders took possession
of the village of Cancale, w’here they lay upon their arms
all night ; and our volunteer was joked by his comrades
about his eagerness to go out upon the war-path, and bring
in two or three scalps of Frenchmen. None such, however,
fell under his tomahawk ; the only person slain on the
w’hole day being a French gentleman, who was riding with
his servant, and w^as surprised by volunteer Lord Downe,
marching in the front with a company of Kingsley’s. My
Lord Downe offered the gentleman quarter, which he
foolishly refused, whereupon he, his servant, and the two
horses, were straightway shot.
Next day the whole force was landed, and advanced
from Cancale to St. Malo. AH the villages were emptied
through which the troops passed, and the roads were so
narrow in many places that the men had to march single
file, and might have been shot down from behind the taU
leafy hedg^ had there been any enemy to disturb them.
At nightfall the army arrived before St. Malo, and were
saluted by a fire of artillery from that town, which did
little damage in the darkness. Under cover of this, the
British set fire to the ships, w’ooden buildings, pitch and
tar magazines in the harbour, and made a prodigious con-
flagration that lasted the whole night.
This feat was achieved without any attempt on the part
of the French to molest the British force : but, as it was
confidently asserted that there was a considerable French
force in the town of St. Malo, though they wouldn’t come
out, his grace the Duke of Marlborough and my Lord
George Sackville determined not to disturb the garrison,
marched back to Cancale again, and — and so got on board
their ships.
If this were not a veracious history, don’t you see that
it would have been easy to send our Virginian on a more
glorious campaign ? Exactly four weeks after his departure
from England, Mr. Warrington found himself at Portsmouth
agsun, and addressed a letter to his brother George, with
which the latter ran off to Dean Street so soon as ever he
received it.
* Glorious news, ladies ! ’ cries he, finding the Lambert
HARRY LIVES TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY
679
family all at breakfast. ‘Our champion has come back.
He has undergone all sorts of dangers, but has survived
them all. He has seen dragons — upon my word, he says so.’
‘ Dragons ! What do you mean, Mr. Warrington ? ’
‘ But not killed any — he says so, as you shall hear. He
writes ; —
‘ Dearesst Brother. — I think you will be glad to hear that I am
returned, without any commission as yet ; without any wounds or
glory ; but, at any rate, alive and harty. On board our ship, we were
alm(^t as crowded as poor Mr. Holwell and his friends in their
Black Hole at Calicutta. We had rough weather, and some of the
gentlemen volunteers, who prefer smooth water, grumbled not
a little. My gentlemen’s stomachs are dainty ; and after Braund’s
cooke^ and White’s kickshaws, they don’t like plain sailor’s mm
and hishet. But I, who have been at sea before, took my rations
and can of flip very contentedly: being determined to put a good
face on everything before our fine English wiocaronfs, and show that
a Virginia gentleman is as good as the best of ’em. I "wish, for the
honour of Old Virginia, that I had more to brag about. But all
I can say in truth is, that we have been to France and come beck
again. Why, I don’t think even your tragick pen could make any-
thing of such a campaign as ours has been. We landed on the 6
at Cancalle Bay, we saw a few dragons on a hill . . .
‘ There ! Did I not teU you there were dragons ? ’ asks
George, laughing.
‘ Mercy ! What can he mean by dragons ? ’ cries Hetty.
‘ Immense long-tailed monsters, with steel scales on their
backs, who vomit fire, and gobble up a virgin a day.
Haven’t you read about them in The Seven Champions ? ’
says papa. ‘ Seeing St. George’s flag, I suppose they slunk
off.’
‘ I have read of ’em,’ says the little boy from Chartreux,
solemnly. ‘ They like to eat women. One was going to
eat Andromeda, you know, papa : and Jason killed another,
who was guarding the apple-tree.’
‘. . . A few dragons on a hill,’ George resumes, ‘who rode away
from us without engaging. We slept under canvass. We marched
to St. Malo, and burned ever so many privateers there. And we went
on board shipp again, without ever crossing swords with an enemy
OT meeting any except a few poor devils whom the troops plundered.
Better luck next time ! This hasn’t been very much nor particular
glorious ; but I have liked it for my part. I have smelt powder^
besides a deal of rosn and pitch we burned. I’ve seen the enemy ;
have sleppt under canvass, and been dreadful crowdid and sick
6S0
THE VIRGINIANS
at sea. I like it. My best compliments to dear Aunt Lambert,
and tell Miss Hetty I wasn’t very mvch fritened when I saw the
French horse.
Your most affectionate brother,
H. E. Waerington.’
We hope Miss Hetty’s qualms of conscience were allayed
by Harry’s announcement that his expedition was over,
and that he had so far taken no hurt. Far otherwise.
Mr. Lambert, in the course of his official duties, had occasion
to visit the troops at Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight,
and George Warrington bore him company. They found
Harry vastly improved in spirits and health from the
excitement prcKiuced by the little campaign, quite eager
and pleased to learn his new military duties, active, cheerful,
and healthy, and altogether a different person from the
listless moping lad who had dawdled in London coffee-
houses and Mrs. Lambert’s drawing-room. The troops
w^ere un<fer canvas ; the wreather was glorious, and George
found his brother a ready pupil in a fine brisk open-air
school of war. Not a little amused, the elder brother,
armin-arm with the young volunteer, paced the streets of
the w’arltke city, recalled his own brief military experiences
of two years back, and saw’ here a much greater army than
that ill-fated one of w’hich he had shared the disasters.
The expedition, such as w’e have seen it, was certainly not
glorious, and yet the troops and the nation were in high
spirits with it. We w’ere said to have humiliated the proud
Gaul. We should have vanquished as well as humbled
him had he dared to appear. What valour, after all, is
like British valour ? I dare say some such expressions
have been heard in later times. Not that I would hint
that our people brag much more than any other, or more
now than formerly. Have not these eyes beheld the
battle-grounds of Leipzig, Jena, Dresden, Waterloo, Blen-
heim, Bunker’s Hill, New Orleans ? What heroic nation
has not fought, has not conquered, has not run aw’ay, has
not bragged in its turn ? Weil, the British nation w’as
much excited by the glorious victory of St. Malo. Captured
fcre«i«ures were sent home and exhibited in London. The
people were so excited, that more laurels and more victories
w’ere demanded, and the enthusiastic army w^ent forth to
seek some.
With this new expedition went a volunteer so distin-
HARRY LIVES TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY
681
guished, that we must give him precedence of all other
amateur soldiers or sailors. This was our sailor prince,
H.R.H, Prince Edward, %vho was conveyed on board the
Essex in the ship’s twelve-oared barge, the standard of
England flying in the bow of the boat, the admiral vdth
his flag and boat following the prince’s, and ail the captains
following in seniority.
Away sails the fleet, Harry, in high health and spirits,
waving his hat to his friends as they cheer from the shore.
He must and will have his commission before long. There
can be no difficulty about that, George thinks. There is
plenty of money in his little store to buy his brother’s
ensigncy ; but if he can win it without purchase by gallantry
and good conduct, that w’ere best. The colonel of the
regiment reports highly of his recruit ; men and officers like
him. It is easy to see that he is a young fellow of good
promise and spirit.
Hip, hip, huzzay i What famous news are these which
arrive ten days after the expedition has sailed ? On the
7th and 8th of August his Majesty’s troops have effected
a landing in the Bay des Marais, two leagues westward of
Cherbourg, in the face of a large body of the enemy. Awed
by the appearance of British valour, that large body of
the enemy has disappeared. Cherbourg has surrendered
at discretion ; and the English colours are hoisted on the
three outlying forts. Seven-and-twenty ships have been
burned in the harbours, and a prodigious number of fine
brass cannon taken. As for your common iron guns, we
have destroyed ’em, likewise the basin (about which the
Mounseers bragged so), and the tw^o piers at the entrance
to the harbour.
There is no end of jubilation in London ; just as Mr.
Howe’s guns arrive from Cherbourg, come Mr. Wolfe’s
colours captured at Louisbourg. The colours are taken
from Kensington to St. Paul’s, escorted by fourscore life-
guards and fourscore horse-grenadiers with officers in pro-
portion, their standards, kettle-drums, and trumpets. At
St. Paul’s they are received by the dean and chapter at
the West Gate, and at that minute — bang, bong, bung —
the Tower and Park guns salute them ! Next day is the
turn of the Cherbourg cannon and mortars. These are the
guns we took. Look at them with their carving and
flaunting emblems — their lilies, and crowns, and mottoes I
z 3
682
THE VIRGINIANS
Here they are, the Temeraire, the Malfaisant, the Vain-
qtieur {the Vainqueur, indeed ! a pretty mvnqumr of
Britons !), and ever so many more. How the people shout
as the pieces are trailed through the streets in procession !
As for Hetty and Mrs. Lambert, I believe they are of
opinion that Harry took every one of the guns himself,
dragging them out of the batteries, and destroying the
artillerymen. He has immensely risen in the general
estimation in the last few days. Madame de Bernstein
has asked about him. Lady Maria has begged her dear
Cousin George to see her, and, if possible, give her news
of his brother. George, who was quite the head of the
family a couple of months since, finds himself deposed,
and of scarce any account, in Mi^ Hetty’s eyes at least.
Your wit, and your learning, and your tragedies, may be
all very well ; but what are these in comparison to victories
and brass cannon ? George takes his deposition very
meekly. They are fifteen thousand Britons. Why should
they not march and take Paris itself ? Nothing more
probable, think some of the ladies. They embrace ; they
congratulate each other ; they are in a high state of excite-
ment. For once, they long that Sir Miles and Lady War-
rington were in town, so that they might pay her ladyship
a visit, and ask, ‘ What do you say to your nephew now,
pray ? Has he not taken twenty-one finest brass cannon ;
flung a hundred and twenty iron guns into the water,
seiz^ twenty-seven ships in the harbour, and destroyed
the basin and the two piers at the entrance ? ’ As the
whole town rejoices and illuminates, so these worthy folks
display brilliant red hangings in their cheeks, and light up
candles of joy in their eyes, in honour of their champion
and conqueror.
But now, I grieve to say, comes a cloudy day after the
fair weather. The appetite of our commanders, growing
by what it fed on, led them to think they had not feasted
enough on the plunder of St. Malo ; and thither, after
staying a brief time at Portsmouth and the Wight, the
conquerors of Cherbourg returned. They w’ere landed in
the Bay of St. Lunar, at the distance of a few miles from
the plaoe^ and marched towards it, intending to destroy
it this time. Meanwhile the harbour of St. Limar was
found injure, and the fleet moved up to St. Cas, keeping
up its communication with the invading army.
HARRY LIVE^ TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY 685
Now the British Lion found that the town of St. Male —
which he had proposed to swallow at a single mouthful —
w’as guarded by an army of French, which the governor
of Brittany had brought to the succour of his good town,
and the meditated couf de main being thus impossible,
our leaders marched for their ships again, which lay duly
awaiting our warriors in the Bay of St. Cas.
Hide, blushing glory, hide St. Cas’s day ! As our troops
were marching down to their ships they became aware of
an army following them, which the French governor of
the province had sent from Brest. Two-thirds of the troops,
and all the artillery, w^ere already embarked, when the
Frenchmen came down upon the remainder. Four com-
panies of the first regiment of guards and the grenadier
companies of the army, faced about on the beach to aw^ait
the enemy, whilst the remaining troops were carried off
in the boats. As the French descended from the heights
round the bay, these guards and grenadiers marched out
to attack- them, leaving an excellent position which they
had occupied — a, great dyke raised on the shore, and behind
which they might have resisted to advantage. And now,
eleven hundred men were engaged with six — nay, ten times
their number ; and, after awhile, broke and made for the
boats with a sauve qui pent I Seven hundred out of the
eleven were killed, drowned, or taken prisoners — the general
himself was killed — and, ah ! where were the volunteers ?
A man of peace myself, and little intelligent of the
practice or the details of war, I own I think less of the
engaged troops than of the people they leave behind. Jack
the Guardsman and La Tidipe of the Royal Bretagne are
face to face, and striving to knock each other’s brains out.
Bon ! It is their nature to — ^like the bears and lions —
and we will not say Heaven, but some Power or other
has made them so to do. But the girl of Tower Hill, who
hung on Jack’s neck before he departed ; and the lass at
Quimper, who gave the Frenchman his hrule-gueule and
tobacco-box before he departed on the noir trajet ? What
have you done, poor little tender hearts, that you should
grieve so ? My business is not with the army, but vdth the
people left behind. What a fine state Miss Hetty Lambert
must be in, when she hears of the disaster to the troops
and the slaughter of the grenadier companies ! What
grief and doubt are in George Warrington’s breast ; what
686
THE VIRGINIANS
commiseration in Martin Lambert’s, as he looks into his
little girl’s face and reads her piteous story there ? Howe,
the brave commodore, rowing in his barge under the enemy’s
fire, has rescued with his bDats scores and scores of our
flying people. More are drowned ; hundreds are prisoners,
or shot on the beach. Among these, where is our Vir-
ginian ?
CHAPTER LXV
soldier’s return
EAT Powers ! will the vain-
glory of men, especially
of Prenchmen, never
cease ? Will it be be-
lieved, that after the
action of St. Cas — ^a mere
affair of cutting off a
rearguard, as you are
aware — ^they were so un-
feeling as to fire aw^ay
I don’t know how much
powder at the Invahdes
at Paris, and brag and
bluster over our misfor-
tune ? Is there any mag-
nanimity in hallooing and
huzzaying because five or
§ix hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand
on a sea-shore, and that fate has overtaken them which
is said to befall the hindmost ? I had a mind to design
an authentic picture of the rejoicings at London upon our
glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns
dragged in procession by our gallant tars ; the stout horse-
grenadiers prancing by ; the mob weaving hats, roaring
cheers, picking pockets, and our friends in a b^cony in
Fleet Street looking on and blessing this scene of British
triumph. But now that the French Invalides have been
so vulgar as to imitate the Tower, and set up their St. Cas
against our St. Malo, I scorn to allude to the stale subject.
J say Ndo, not Malo : content, for my part, if Harry has
SOLDIER'S RETURN
6S7
returned from one expedition and t’other i^ith a whole
skin. And have I ever said he was so much as bruised ?
Have I not, for fear of exciting my fair young reader,
said that he was as well as ever he had been in his life ?
The sea air had browned his cheek, and the ball ivhistling
by his side-curl had spared it. The ocean had wet his
gaiters and other garments, without swallowing up his
body. He had, it is true, shown the lapels of his coat
to the enemy ; but for as short a time as possible, with-
drawing out of their sight as quick as might be. And
what, pray, are lapels but reverses ? Coats have them, as
well as men ; and our duty is to wear them with courage
and good humour.
‘ I can tell you,’ said Harry, ‘ we all had to run for it ;
and w’hen our line broke, it was he who could get to the
boats who w^as most lucky. The French, horse and foot,
pursued us down to the sea, and were mingled among us,
cutting our men down, and bayoneting them on the ground.
Poor Armytage was shot in advance of me, and fell ; and
I took him up and staggered through the surf to a boat.
It w’as lucky that the sailors in our boat weren’t afraid ;
for the shot were w'histling about their ears, breaking the
blades of their oars, and riddling their flag with shot;
but the officer in command was as cool as if he had been
drinking a bowi of punch at Portsmouth, which w^e had
one on landing, I can promise you. Poor Sir John was
less lucky than me. He never lived to reach the ship, and
the service has lost a fine soldier, and Miss How’-e a true
gentleman to her husband. There must be these casual-
ties, you see ; and his brother gets the promotion, — the
baronetcy.’
‘ It is of the poor lady I am thinking,’ says Miss Hetty
(to w^hom haply our volxmteer is telling his story) ; ‘ and
the king. Why did the king encourage Sir John Armytage
to go ? A gentleman could not refuse a command from
such a quarter. And now the poor gentleman is dead !
Oh w^hat a state his Majesty must be in ! ’
‘ I have no doubt his Majesty will be in a deep state
of grief,’ says papa, w’agging his head.
‘ Now you are laughing ! Do you mean, sir, that w^hen
a gentleman dies in his service, almost at his feet, the
King of England w^on’t feel for him ? ’ Hetty asks. ‘ If
I thought that, I vow" I w"Ould be for the Pretender ! ’
THE VIRGINIANS
* The sauce-box would make a pretty little head for
Temple Bar,* sa3rs the general, who could see Miss Hetty’s
meaning behind her words, and was aware in what a tumult
of remorse, of consternation, of gratitude that the danger
was over, the little heart was beating — No,’ says he, ‘ my
dear. Were kings to weep for every soldier, what a life you
would make for them \ I think better of his Majesty than
to supper him so w’eak ; and, if Miss Hester Lambert got
her Pretender, I doubt whether she w'ould be any the
happier. That family was never famous for too much
feeling.’
‘ But if the king sent Harry — mean Sir John Army-
tage — actually to the war in which he lost his life, oughtn’t
his Majesty to repent very much ? ’ asks the young lady,
‘ H had fallen, no doubt the Court w^ould have
gone into mourning : as it is, gentlemen and ladies were
in coioared clothes y^terday,’ remarks the general.
‘ Why should we not make bonfires for a defeat, and
put on sackcloth and ashes after a victory ? ’ asks George.
‘ I protest I don’t want to thank Heaven for helping us
to burn the ships at Cherbourg.’
* Yes you do, Geor^ i Not that I have a right to speak,
and you ain’t ever so much cleverer. But when your
country wins you’re glad — know I am. When I run
away before Prenchmen I’m ashamed — can’t help it,
though I done it,’ says Harry. ^ It don’t seem to me right
somehow that Englishmen should have to do it,’ he added,
gravely. And Geoige smiled ; but did not choc^ to ask
his briber what, on the other hand, was the Frenchman’s
opinion.
* ’Tis a bad business,’ continued Harry, gravely : ‘ but
’tis lucky ’twas no worse. The story about the French
is, that their governor, the Duke of Aiguillon, was rather
what you call a moistened chicken. Our whole retreat might
have been cut off, only, to be sure, we ourselves were in
a mi^ty hurry to move. The French local militia behaved
famous, I am happy to say ; and there was ever so many
gentlemen volunteers with ’em, who showed, as they ought
to do, in the front. They say the Chevalier of Tour
d’Auv^gne engaged in spite of the Duke of Aiguillon’s
or^rs. OfScers told us, who came off with a list of our
prisoners and wounded to General Bligh and Lord Howe.
He is a kmJ now, since the news came of his brother’s
SOLDIER’S RETURN
689
death to home, George. He is a brave fellow, whether
lord or commoner.’
‘ And his sister who was to have married poor Sir John
Armytage, think what her state must be ! ’ sighs Miss Hetty,
who has grown of late so sentimental.
‘ And his mother ! ’ cries Mrs. Lambert. ‘ Have you
seen her ladyship’s address in the papers to the electors
of Nottingham ? “ Lord Howe being now absent upon the
publick service, and Lieutenant-Colonel Howe with his
regiment at Louisbourg, it rests upon me to beg the favour
of your votes and interests that Lieutenant-Colonel Howe
may supply the place of his late brother as your repre-
sentative in Parliament.” Isn’t this a gallant woman ? ’
‘ A laconic woman,’ says George.
‘ How can sons help being brave who have been nursed
by such a mother as that Y ’ asks the general.
Our two young men looked at each other.
‘ If one of us were to fall in defence of Ms country, w’e
have a mother in Sparta who would think and write so
too,’ says Gteorge.
‘ If Sparta is anywhere Virginia way, I reckon we have,’
remarks Mr. Harry. ‘ And to think that we should both
of us have met the enemy, and both of us been whipped
by him, brother ! ’ he adds pensively.
Hetty looks at Mm, and thinks of him only as he was
the other day, tottering through the water towards the
boats, Ms comrade bleeMng on Ms shoulder, the enemy in
pursuit, the shot flying round. And it was she who drove
him into the danger ! Her w^ords provoked Mm. He never
rebukes her now he is returned. Except when asked, he
scarcely speaks about Ms adventures at all. He is very
grave and courteous with Hetty ; with the rest of the
family especially frank and tender. But those taunts of
hers wounded him. ‘ Little hand ! ’ his looks and demean-
our seem to say, ‘ thou shouldst not have been lifted against
me 1 It is ill to scorn any one, much more one w’ho has
been so devoted to you and all yours. I may not be over
quick of wit, but in as far as the heart goes, I am the equal
of the best, and the best of my heart your family has had.’
Harry’s WTong, and Ms magnanimous endurance of it,
served Mm to regain in Miss Hetty’s esteem that place
which he had lost during the previous months’ inglorious
idleness. The respect which the fair pay to the brave she
THE VIRGINIANS
gave him. She vras no longer pert in her answers, or
sarcastic in her observations regarding his conduct. In
a word, she w’as a humiliated, an altered, an improved
Miss Hetty.
And all the world seemed to change towards Harry, as
he towards the world. He was no longer sulky and indo-
lent : he no more desponded about himself, or defied his
neighbours. The colonel of his regiment reported his be-
haviour as exemplary, and recommended him for one of
the commissions vacated by the casualties during the
expedition. Unlucky as its termination w'as, it at least
was fortunate to him. His brother volunteers, w'hen they
came back to St. James’s Street, reported highly of his
behaviour. These volunteers and their actions \vere the
theme eveiybody’s praise. Had he been a general
commanding, and slain in the moment of victory. Sir John
Armjrtage could scarce have had more sympathy than that
which the nation showed him. The papers teemed with
letters about him, and men of wit and sensibility vied with
each other in composing epitaphs in his honour. The fate
of his affianced bride w^as bewailed. She w’as, as w^e have
said, the sister of the brave commodore who had just
returned from this unfortunate expedition, and succeeded
to the title of his elder brother, an officer as gallant as
himself, who had just fallen in America.
My Lord Howe was heard to speak in special praise of
Mr. Warrington, and so he had a handsome share of the
fashion said favour which the town now bestowed on the
volunteers. Doubtless there were thousands of men em-
ployed who were as good as they : but the English ever
love their gentlemen, and love that they should distinguish
themselves ; and these volunteers wrere voted Paladins and
heroes by common accord. As our young noblemen will,
they accepted their popularity very affably. White’s and
Almaek’s illuminated when they returned, and St. James’s
embraced its young knights. Harry w^as restored to full
favour amongst them. Their hands were held out eagerly
to him again. Even his relations congratulated him ; and
th^ came a letter from Castlewood, whither Aunt Bern-
st^n had by this time betaken herself, containing praises
of his valour, and a pretty little bank-bill, as a token of
his affectionate aunt’s approbation. This was under my
Lord C^tlew^ood’s frank, who sent his regards to both his
SOLDIER'S RETURN
691
kinsmen, and an offer of the hospitality of his country
house, if they were minded to come to him. And besides
this, there came to him a private letter through the post —
not very well s|^lt, but in a handwriting which Harry
smiled to see again, in which his affectionate cousin, Maria
Esmond, told him she always loved to hear his praises
(which were in everybody’s mouth now), and sympathized
in his good or evil fortune ; and that, whatever occurred
to him, she begged to keep a little place in his heart.
Parson Sampson, she wrote, had preached a beautiful
sermon about the horrors of war, and the noble actions
of men who volunteered to face battle and danger in the
service of their country. Indeed, the chaplain wrote him-
self, presently, a letter full of enthusiasm, in which he
salut^ Mr. Harry as his friend, his benefactor, his glorious
hero. Even Sir Miles Warrington dispatched a basket of
game from Norfolk : and one bird (shot sitting), with love
to my cousin, had a string and paper round the leg, and
was sent as the first victim of young Miles’s fowling-piece.
And presently, with joy beaming in his countenance,
Mr. Lambert came to visit his young friends at their
lodgings in Southampton Row, and announced to them
that Mr. Henry Warrington was forthwith to be gazetted
as ensign in the second battalion of Kingsley’s, the 20th
Regiment, which had been engaged in the campaign, and
which now at this time was formed into a separate regiment,
the 67th. Its colonel was not with his regiment during
its expedition to Brittany. He was away at Cape Breton,
and was engaged in capturing those guns at Louisbourg,
of which the arrival in England had caused such exultation.
m
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LXVI
IN WHICH WE QO A-COUBTING
OME of my amiable readers no
doubt are in the custom of
visiting that famous garden in
the Regent’s Park, in w^hich so
many of our finned, feathered,
four-footed fellow creatures,
are accommodated with board
and lodging, inretumfor which
they exhibit themselves for our
instruction and amusement :
and there, as a man’s business
and private thoughts follow
himeveryw'here,andmixthem-
selv^ with, all life and nature
round about him, I found my-
self, whilst looking at some fish
in the aquarium, still actually
thinking d our friends the Virginians. One of the most
beautiM motion-masters I ever bdadd, sweeping through
his green bath in harmonious curves, now turning his black
^stoning back to me, now exhibiting his fair white chest,
in every movement active and graceful, turned out to be
our oM homely friend the flounder, whom we have all
gobbled up out of his bath of water souchy at Greenwich,
without having the slightest idea that he was a beauty.
As is the race of man, so is the race of flounders. If
you can but see the latter in his right element, you may
view him agile, healthy, and comely : put him out of his
place, and behold his beauty is gone, his motions are dis-
graceful : he fla^ the unfeeling ground ridiculously with
his tail, and will presently gasp his feeble life out. Take
him up tenderly, ere it be too late, and cast him into his
native Thames again . But stop : I believe there is
a certain proverb about fish out of water, and that other
profound naturalists have remarked on them before me.
Now Harry Warrington had been floundering for ever so
long a time past, and out of his proper element. As soon
WE GO A-COURTING m
as he found it, health, strength, spirits, energy, returned
to him, and with the tap of the epaulet on his shoulder
he sprang up an altered being- He delighted in his new
profession ; he engaged in all its details, and mastered
them with eager quickness. Had I the skill of my friend
Lorrequer, I w^ould follow’ the other Harry into camp, and
see him on the march, at the mess, on the parade-ground ;
I w’ould have many a carouse with him and his companions ;
I would cheerfully live with him under the tents ; I w’ould
knowingly explain all the manoeuvres of w’ar, and all the
details of the life military. As it is, the reader must please,
out of his experience and imagination, to fill in the colours
of the picture of w’hich I can give but meagre hints and
outlines, and, above all, fancy Mr. Harry Warrington in
his new' red coat and yellow facings, very happy to bear
the king’s colours, and pleased to learn and perform all
the duties of his new’ profession.
As each young man delighted in the excellence of the
other, and cordially recognized his brother’s superior
qualities, George, we may be sure, was proud of Harry’s
success, and rejoiced in his returning good fortune. He
wrote an affectionate letter to his mother in Virginia,
recounting all the praises w’hich he had heard of Harry,
and which his brother’s modesty, George knew’, w’ould
never allow him to repeat. He described how Harry had
won his ow’n first step in the army, and how he, George,
would ask his mother leave to share with her the expense
of purchasing a higher rank for him.
Nothing, said George, w’ould give him a greater delight,
than to be able to help his brother, and the more so, as,
by his sudden return into life as it w’ere, he had deprived
Harry of an inheritance which he had legitimately con-
sidered as his ow’n. Labouring under that misconception
Harry had indulged in greater expenses than he ever
w^ould have thought of incurring as a younger brother ;
and George thought it was but fair, and, as it were, as
a thank-offering for his own deliverance, that he should
contribute liberally to any scheme for his brother’s
advantage.
And now, having concluded his statement respecting
Harry’s affairs, George took occasion to speak of his own,
and addressed his honoured mother on a point winch very
deeply concerned himself. She w’as aw’are that the best
m THE VIHGINIANS
friends he and his brother had found in England, were
the good Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, the latter Madam Esmond’s
schoolfellow of earlier years. Where their own blood
relations had been worldly and unfeeling, these true friends
had ever been generous and kind. The general was
respected by the whole army, and beloved by all who knew
him. 2fo mother's affection could have been more touching
than Mrs. Lambert’s for both Madam Esmond’s children ;
and now, wrote Mr. George, he himself had formed an
attachment for the elder Ali^ Lambert, on which he thought
the happiness of his life depended, and w’hich he besought
his honoured mother to approve. He had made no precise
offers to the young lady or her parents ; but he was bound
to say that he made little disguise of his sentiments,
and that the young lady, as well as her parents, seemed
favourable to him. She had been so admirable and
exemjrfary a daughter to her own mother, that he felt sure
she would do her duty by his. In a word, Mr. Warrington
described the young lady as a model of perfection, and
expressed his firm belief that the happiness or misery of
his own future life depended upon possessing or losing
her. Why do you not produce this letter ? haply as]^
some sentiment^ reader, of the present editor, who has said
how he has the whole Warrington correspondence in his
hands. Why not 1 Because ’tis cruel to babble the
secrets of a young man’s love ; to overhear his incoherent
vows and wild raptures, and to note, in cold blood, the
secrets — ^it may be, the folli^ — of his passion. Shall we
play eavesdropper at twilight embrasures, count sighs
and handshakes, bottle hot tears : lay our stethoscope
on delicate young breasts, and feel their heart-throbs ?
I protest, for one, love is sacred. Wherever I see it (as one
sometimes may in this world) shooting suddenly out of
two pair of eyes ; or glancing sadly even from one pair ;
or looking down from the mother to the baby in her lap ;
or from papa at his girl’s happiness as she is whirling round
the room with the captain ; or from John Anderson, as
his old wife comes into the room — the bonne vieiUe, the
ever-peerless among w’omen ; w-herever we see that signal,
I say, let us salute it. It is not only wTong to kiss and
teU, but to tell about kisses. Everybody who has been
admitted to the mystery, — ^hush about it. Down with him
qm Dme sacrum vulgarit arcanae. Beware how you dine
WE GO A-COURUKG
605
with him, he will print your private talk : as sure as you
sail with him, he will throw you over.
Whilst Harry’s love of battle has led him to smell powder
— to rush upon reludantes dracones, and to carry wounded
comrades out of fire, George has been pursuing an amuse-
ment much more peaceful and delightful to him ; penning
sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow, mayhap ; pacing in the
darkness under her window, and watching the little lamp
which shone upon her in her chamber ; finding all sorts
of pretexts for sending little notes which don’t seem to
require little answers, but get them ; culling bits out of
his favourite poets, and flowers out of Covent Garden for
somebody’s special adornment and pleasure ; w^alking to
St. James’s Church, singing very likely out of the same
Prayer-book, and never hearing one word of the sermon,
so much do other thoughts engross him ; being prodigi-
ously affectionate to all Miss Theo’s relations — to her little
brother and sister at school ; to the elder at college ; to
Miss Hetty with whom he engages in gay passages of
wit ; and, to mamma, who is half in love with him herself,
Maitin Lambert says ; for if fathers are sometimes sulky
at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not
a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were,
love their own loves over again ?
Gumbo and Sady are for ever on the trot between South-
ampton Row and Dean Street. In the summer months
all sorts of junketings and pleasure-parties are devised;
and there are countless proposals to go to Ranelagh, to
Hampstead, to VauxhaU, to Maryleb^one Gardens, and
what not. George wants the famous tragedy copied out
fair for the stage, and who can write such a beautiful Italian
hand as Miss Theo ? As the sheets pass to and fro they
are accompanied by little notes of thanks, of interrogation,
of admiration, always. See, here is the packet, marked
in Warrington’s neat hand, ‘ T’s letters, 1758-9.’ Shall
we open them and reveal their tender secrets to the public
gaze ? Those virgin words were w^hispered for one ear
alone. Years after they were written, the husband read,
no doubt, with sw^eet pangs of remembrance, the fond
lines addressed to the lover. It were a sacrilege to show
the pair to public eyes : only let kind readers be pleased
to take our word that the young lady’s letters are modest
and pure, the gentleman’s most respectful and tender.
TEE VIEGINIANS
In fine, you see, we have said very little about it ; but,
in these few last months, Mr. George Warrington has
made up his mind that he has found the woman of women.
She mayn’t be the most beautiful. Why, there is cousin
Flora, there is Coelia, and Ardeiia, and a hundred more,
who are ever so much more handsome : but her sweet face
pleases him better than any other in the 'world. She mayn’t
be the most clever, but her voice is the dearest and pleasant-
est to hear ; and in her company he is so clever himself ;
he has such fine thoughts ; he uses such eloquent w^ords ;
he is so generous, noble, witty, that no wonder he delights
in it. imd, in regard to the young lady, — ^as thank Heaven
I never thought so ill of women as to suppose them to be
Just, — ^we may be sure that there is no amount of wit, of
wisdom, ci beauty, of valour, of virtue with w^hich she
does not endow her young hero.
When George’s letter reached home, we may fancy that
it created no small excitement in the little circle round
Madam Esmond’s fireside. So he was in love, and wished
to marry ! It was but natural, and would keep him out
of harm’s way. If he proposed to unite himself with a well-
bred Christian young woman, madam saw no harm.
‘ I knew they womd be setting their caps at him,’ says
Mountain, * They fancy that his wealth is as great as his
©state. He does not say whether the young lady has
money. I fear other\dse.’
‘ People would set their cape at him here, I dare say,’
says Madam Esmond, grimly looking at her dependant,
' and try and catch Mr. Esmond Warrington for their own
daughters, who are no richer than Miss Lambert may be.’
' I suppose your ladyship means me ! ’ says Mountain.
‘ My Fanny is poor, as you say ; and ’tis kmd of you to
remind me of her poverty ! ’
‘ I said people would set their caps at him. If the cap fits
you, tarU pis f as my papa used to say.’
‘You think, madam, I am scheming to keep George
for my daughter ? I thank you, on my word ! A good
opinion you seem to have of us after the years we have
lived together ! ’
‘ My dear Mountain, I know 3^ou much better than to
supper you could ever fancy your daughter would be
a suitable match for a gentleman of Mr, Esmond’s rank
and station/ says nmdam, with much dignity*
WE GO A-COUKTING
mi
^ Fanny Parker was as good as MoUy Benson at school,
and Mr. Mountain’s daughter is as good as Mr. Lambert’s ! ’
Mrs. Mountain cries out.
‘ Then you did think of marrying her to my son ? I shall
■vvTite to Esmond Warrington, and say how sorry I am
that you should be disappointed ! ’ says the mistress of
Castlewood. And we, for our parts, may suppose that
Mrs. Mountain was disappointed, and had some ambitious
views respecting her daughter — else, why should she have
been so angry at the notion of Mr. Warrington’s marriage ?
In reply to her son, Madam Esmond wrote back that she
was pleased with the fraternal love George exhibited ;
that it was indeed but right in some measure to compensate
Harry, whose expectations had led him to adopt a more
costly mode of life than he would have entered on had
he known he was only a younger son. And with respect
to purchasing his promotion, she would gladly halve the
expense with Harry’s elder brother, being thankful to think
his own gallantry had won him his first step. This bestow’al
of George’s money, Madam Esmond added, was at least
much more satisfactory than some other extravagances
to which she w’ould not advert.
The other extravagance to which madam alluded w’as
the payment of the ransom to the French captain’s family,
to which tax Gorge’s mother never would choose to submit.
She had a determined spirit of her own, which her son in-
herited. His persistence she called pride and obstinacy.
What she thought of her own pertinacity, her biographer who
lives so far from her time does not pretend to say. Only I
dare say people a hundred years ago pretty much resembled
their grandchildren of the present date, and loved to have
their own way, and to make others follow it.
Now, after paying his own ransom, his brother’s debts,
and half the price for his promotion, George calculated
that no inconsiderable portion of his private patrimony
would be swallowed up : nevertheless he made the sacrifice
wdth a perfect good heart. His good mother ahvays
enjoined him in her letters to remember who his grandfather
was, and to support the dignity of his family accordingly.
She gave him various commissions to purchase goods in
England, and though she as yet had sent him very trifling
remittances, she alluded so constantly to the exalted rank
of the Esmonds, to her desire that he should do nothing
m
THE VIRGINIANS
iinworthy of that illustrious family ; she advised him so
peremptorily and frequently to appear in the first society
of the country, to frequent the Court where his ancestor
had been accustomed to move, and to appear always in
the world in a manner worthy of his name, that George
made no doubt his mother’s money would be forthcoming
when his ran short, and generously obeyed her injunc-
tions as to his style of life. I find in the Esmond papers
of this period, bills for genteel entertainments, tailors’
bills for Court suits supplied, and liveries for his honour’s
negro servants and chairmen, horse-dealers’ receipts,
and so forth ; and am thus led to believe that the elder
of our Virginians w^as also after a while living at a con-
siderable expense.
He was not wild or extrav^ant like his brother. There
was no talk of gambling or racehorses against Mr. George ;
his table wa& Hberal, his equipages handsome, his purse
always full, the estate to which he was heir was known to
be immense. I mention these circumstances because they
may probably have influenced the conduct both of George
and his friends in that very matter concerning which, as
I have said, he and his mother had been just corresponding.
The young heir of Virginia was travelling for his pleasure
and improvement in foreign kingdoms. The queen, his
mother, was in daily correspondence with his highness, and
constantly enjoined him to act as became his lofty station.
There co^d be no doubt from her letters that she desired
he should live liberally and magnificently. He was per-
petually making purchases at his parent’s order. She had
not settled as yet ; on the contrary, she had wrote out
by the last mail for twelve new sets of wagon-harness,
and an organ that should play fourteen specified psalm-
tunes : which articles George dutifully ordered. She
had not paid as yet, and might not to-day or to-morrow, but
eventuaUy, of course, she would ; and Mr. Warrington
never thought of troubling his friends about these calcu-
lations, or discussing with them his mother’s domestic
afiairs. They, on their side, took for granted that he was
m a state of competence and ease, and, without being
mercenary folks, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert were no doubt
to see an attachment growling up betw^een their
dan^ter and a young gentleman of such good principles,
tatois, femily, and expectations. There w^as honesty
WE GO A-COUBTESTG
m
in all Mr. Esmond Warrington’s words and actions, and
in his behaviour to the world a certain grandeur and sim-
plicity, which showed him to be a true gentleman. Some-
what cold and haughty in his demeanour to strangers,
especially towards the great, he was not in the least super-
cilious : he was perfectly courteous towards women, and
with those people whom he loved, especially kind, amiable,
lively, and tender.
No W'onder that one young woman W'e know of got to
think him the best man in all the world — ^alas ! not even
excepting papa. A great love felt by a man towards
a woman makes him better, as regards her, than all other
men. We have said that George used to wonder himself
when he found how witty, how eloquent, how wise he
was, when he talked with the fair young creature w’hose
heart had become all his. ... I say we will not again
listen to their love whispers. Those soft words do not
bear being WTitten dowm. If you please — ^good sir, or
madam, who are sentimentally inclined — ^iay down the
book and think over certain things for yourself. You
may be ever so old now ; but you remember. It may be
all dead and buried ; but in a moment, up it springs out of
its grave, and looks, and smiles, and whispers as of yore
when it clung to your arm, and dropped fresh tears on
your heart. It is here^ and alive, did I say ? 0 far, far
aw^ay ! O lonely hearth and cold ashes ! Here is the
vase, but the roses are gone ; here is the shore, and yonder
the ship was moored ; but the anchors are up, and it has
sailed aw^ay for ever.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This, however, is mere
sentimentality ; and as regards George and Theo, is
neither here nor there. What I mean to say is, that the
young lady’s family were perfectly satisfied with the state
of affairs between her and Mr. Warrington ; and though
he had not as yet asked the decisive question, everybody
else knew what the answer would be wben it came.
Mamma perhaps thought the question was a long time
coming.
^ Psha ! my dear ! ’ says the general. ‘ There is time
enough in all conscience. Theo is not much more than
seventeen ; George, if I mistake not, is under forty ; and,
besides, he must have time to write to Virginia, and ask
mamma.’
700
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ But suppose she refuse ? ’
* That will be a bad day for old and young,’ says the
general. * Let us rather say, suppose she consents, my
love ? — I can’t fancy anybody in the world refusing Theo
anything she has set her heart on,’ adds the father : ‘ and
I am sure ’tis bent upon this match.’
So they all waited with the utmost anxiety until an
answer from Madam Esmond should arrive ; and trembled
lest the French privateers should take the packet-ship
by which the precious letter was conveyed.
CHAPTER LXVII
m WHICH A TEAGBDY IS ACTED, AND TWO MORE ABB BEGUN
AMES Wolfe, Harry’s new
colonel, came back from
America a few’ weeks
after our Virginian had
joined his regiment.
Wolfe had previously
been lieutenant-colonel of
Kingsley’s, and a second
battalion of the regiment
had been formed and
given to him in reward
for his distinguished gal-
lantry and services at
Cape Breton. Harry
went with quite unfeigned respect and cordiality to pay his
duty to his new’ commander, on w’hom the eyes of the
w’orld began to be turned now’, — ^the common opinion
being that he w^as likely to become a great general. In the
late affairs in France, several officers of great previous
repute had been tried, and found lamentably wanting.
The Duke of Marlborough had shown himself no worthy
descendant of his great ancestor. About my Lord George
&W5kviUe’s military genius there w’ere doubts, even before
his unhappy behaviour at Minden prevented a great victory.
The nation was longing for military glory, and the minister
was anxious to find a general w’ho might gratify the eager
A TRAGEDY IS ACTED
701
desire of the people. Mr. Wolfe’s and Mr. Lambert’s
business keeping them both in London, the friendly inter-
course between those officers was renewed, no one being
more delighted than Lambert at his younger friend’s
good fortune.
Harry, when he was away from his duty, was never
tired of hearing Mr. Wolfe’s details of the military operations
of the last year, about w’hich Wolfe talked very freely and
openly. Whatever thought was in his mind, he appears
to have spoken it out generously. He had that heroic
simplicity which distinguished Nelson afterwards : he
talked frankly of his actions. Some of the fine gentlemen
at St. James’s might w’onder and sneer at him ; but amongst
our Mttle circle of friends we may be sure he found admiring
listeners. The young general had the romance of a boy
on many matters. He delighted in music and poetry.
On the last day of his life he said he would rather have
written Gray’s EUgy than have won a battle. We may
be sure that with a gentleman of such literary tastes our
friend George would become familiar ; and as they were
both in love, and both accepted lovers, and both eager for
happiness, no doubt they must have had many senti-
mental conversations together which would be very inter-
esting to report could we only have accurate accounts of
them. In one of his later letters, Warrington writes :
‘ I had the honour of knowing the famous General Wolfe,
and seeing much of him during his last stay in London.
We had a subject of conversation then which was of un-
failing interest to both of us, and I could not but admire
Mr. Wolfe’s simplicity, his frankness, and a sort of glorious
bravery which characterized him. He was much in love,
and he wanted heaps and heaps of laurels to take to his
mistress. “ If it be a sin to covet honour,” he used to say
with Harry the Pifth (he was passionately fond of plays
and poetry), “ I am the most offending soifi alive.” Surely
on his last day he had a feast which was enough to satisfy
the greediest appetite for glory. He hungered after it.
He seenied to me not merely like a soldier going resolutely
to do his duty, but rather l^e a knight in quest of dragons
and giants. My own country has furnished of late a chief of
a veiy different order, and quite an opposite genius. I scarce
know which to admire most, the Briton’s chivalrous ardour,
or the more than Roman constancy of our great Virginian,’
702
THE VIRGINIANS
As Mr. Lambert’s official duties detained him in London,
his family remained contentedly with him, and I suppose
Mr . Warrington was so satisfi^ with the rural quiet of
Southampton Row and the beautiful flowers and trees
of Bedford Gardens, that he did not care to quit London
for any long period. He made his pilgrimage to Castle-
wood, and passed a few days there, occup3?ing the chamber
of which he had often heard his gran^ather talk, and
which Colonel Esmond had occupied as a boy ; and he was
received kindly enough by such members of the family
as happened to be at home. But no doubt he loved better
to be in London by the side of a young person in whose
society he found greater pleasure than any w’hich my
Lord Castlewood’s circle could afford him, though all the
ladies were civil, and Lady Maria especially gracious, and
enchanted with the trag^y which George and Parson
Sampson read out to the ladies. The chaplain was enthu-
siastic in its praises, and indeed it was through his interest
and not through Mr. Johnson’s after all, that Mr. War-
rington’s piece ever came on the stage. Mr. Johnson,
it is true, pressed the play on his friend Mx. Garrick for
Drury Lane, but Garrick had just made an arrangement
with the famous Mr. Home for a tragedy from the pen of
the author of Douglas, Accordingly, Carpezan was carried
to Mr. Rich at Covent Garden, and accepted by that
manager.
On the night of the production of the piece, Mr. War-
rington gave an eluant entertainment to his friends at
the ‘Bedfcmi Head’, in Covent Garden, whence they ad-
journed in a body to the theatre; leaving only one or
two with our young author, who remained at the coffee-
house, where friends from time to time came to him with
an account of the performance. The part of Carpezan
was filled by Barry, Shuter was the old nobleman. Reddish,
I need scarcely say, made an excellent Ulric, and the King
Bohemia was by a yoxmg actor from Dublin, Mr. Geoghe-
ggm, or Hagan as he was called on the stage, and who
looked and performed the part to admiration. Mrs.
Woffington looked too old in the first act as the heroine,
but her murder in the fourth act, about which great doubts
were expressed, went off to the terror and delight of the
audience. Miss Wayn sang the ballad which is supposed
to be sung by the iMg’s page, just at the moment of the
A TRAGEDY IS ACTED
703
unhappy wife’s execution, and all agreed that Barry was
very terrible and pathetic as Carpezan, especially in the
execution scene* The grace and elegance of the young
actor, Hagan, won general applause. The piece w^as put
very elegantly on the stage by ]VIr. Rich, though there was
some doubt whether, in the march of janizaries in the
last, the manager was correct in introducing a favourite
elephant, which had figured in various pantomimes, and
by which one of Mr. Warrington’s black servants marched
in a Turkish habit. The other sat in the footmen’s gallery,
and uproariously wept and applauded at the proper
intervals.
The execution of Sybilla was the turning point of the
piece. Her head off, George’s friends breathed freely,
and one messenger after another came to him at the coffee-
house, to announce the complete success of the tragedy.
Mr. Barry, amidst general applause, announced the play
for repetition, and that it was the work of a young gentle-
man of Virginia, his first attempt in the dramatic style.
We should like to have been in the box where all our
friends were seated during the performance, to have watched
Theo’s flutter and anxiety whilst the success of the play
seemed dubious, and have beheld the blushes and the
sparkles in her eyes, when the victory was assured. Harry,
during the little trouble in the fourth act, was deadly pale —
whiter, Mrs. Lambert said, than Barry with all his chalk.
But if Briareus could have clapped hands, he could scarcely
have made more noise than Harry at the end of the piece.
Mr. Wolfe and General Lambert huzzayed enthusiastically.
Mrs. Lambert, of course, cried : and though Hetty said,
^ Why do you cry, mamma ? You don’t want any of
them alive again ; you know it serves them all right : ’ — ^the
girl was really as much delighted as any person present,
including little Charley from the Chartreux, who had leave
from Dr. Crusius for that evening, and Miss Lucy, who
had been brought from boarding-school on purpose to be
present on the great occasion. My Lord Castlevrood and
his sister, Lady Maria, w^ere present ; and his lordship w^ent
from his box and complimented Mr, Barry and the other
actors on the stage ; and Parson Sampson w^as invaluable
in the pit, w^here he led the applause, having, I believe,
given previous instructions to Gumbo to keep an eye upon
him from the gallery, and do as he did.
704
THE VIRGINIANS
Be sure there was a very jolly supper of Mr. Warrington’s
friends that night — much more jolly than Mr. Garrick’s,
for example, who made but a very poor succ^s with his
Agis and its dreary choruses, and w'ho must have again
felt that he had missed a goixi chance, in preferring Mr.
Home’s tragedy to our young author’s. A jolly supper,
did we say ? — ^Matiy jolly suppers. Mr. Gumbo gave an
entertmnment to several gentlemen of the shoulder-knot,
who had concurred in supporting his master’s masterpiece :
Mr, Henry Warrington gave a supper at the ‘ Star and
Garter in Pall -Mali, to ten officers of his new regiment, who
had come up for the express purpcse of backing Carpezan ;
mad finally, Mr. Warrington received the three principal
actors of the tragedy, our family p^rty from the side box,
Mr. Johnson and his mgenious friend, Mr. Reynolds the
painter, my Lord Gastlewood and his sister, and one or
two more. My Lady Maria happened to sit next to the
young actor who had performed the part of the king. Mr.
Warrington somehow’ had Miss Theo for a neighbour, and
no doubt passed a pleasant evening beside her. The
greatest animation and cordiality prevailed, and when
toasts were called, Lady Maria gaily gave ‘ The King of
Hungary ’ for hers. That gentleman, who had plenty of
eloquence and fire, and exeeUent manners, on as w’ell as off
the stage, protested that he had already suffered death
in the course of the evening, hoped that he should die a
hundred times more on the same field ; but, dead or living,
vowed he knew whose humble servant he ever should be.
Ah, if he had but a real crown in place of his diadem of
pasteboard and tinsel, with what joy would he lay it at
her ladyship’s feet ! Neither my lord nor Mr. Esmond
were over well-pleased with the gentleman’s exceeding
gallantry — a part of which they attributed, no doubt justly,
to the wine and punch, of which he had been partaking
very freely. Theo and her sister, who w^ere quite new to
the world, were a little frightened by the exceeding energy
of Mr. Hagan’s manner — but Lady Maria, much more
experienced, took it in perfectly good part. At a late hour
coaches were called, to which the gentlemen attended the
ladies, after whose departure some of them returned to the
supj^r-room, and the end was that Carpezan had to be
carried away in a chair, and that the l^ng of Hungary
had a severe headache ; and that the poet, though he
A TRAGEDY IS ACTED
705
remembered making a great number of speeches, was
quite astounded when half a dozen of his guests appeared
at his house the next day, w'hom he had invited over night
to come and sup with him once more.
As he put Mrs. Lambert and her daughters into their
coach on the night previous, all the ladies were flurried,
delighted, excited ; and you may be sure our gentleman
was with them the next day, to talk of the play and the
audience, and the actors, and the beauties of the piece, over
and over again. Mrs. Lambert had heard that the ladies
of the theatre were dangerous company for young men.
She hoped George would have a care, and not frequent
the green-room too much.
George smiled, and said he had a preventive against
all green-room temptations, of which he was not in the
least afraid ; and as he spoke he looked in Theo’s face,
as if in those eyes lay the amulet which was to preserve
him from all danger.
‘ Why should he be afraid, mamma ? ’ asks the maiden
simply. She had no idea of danger or of guile.
‘ No, my darling, I don’t think he need be afraid,’ says
the mother, kissing her.
‘ You don’t suppose Mr. George wotild fall in love with
that painted old creature who performed the chief part ? ’
asks Miss Hetty, with a toss of her head. ‘ She must be
old enough to be his mother.’
‘ Pray, do you suppose that at our age nobody can care
for us, or that we have no hearts left ? ’ asks mamma, very
tartly. ‘ I believe, or I may say, I hope and trust, your
father thinks otherwise. He is, I imagine, perfectly
satisfied, miss. He does not sneer at age, whatever little
girls out of the schoolroom may do. And they had much
better be back there, and they had much better remem-
ber what the fifth commandment is — ^that they had, Hetty 1 ’
‘ I didn’t think I -was breaking it by saying that an
actress was as old as George’s mother,’ pleaded Hetty.
‘ George’s mother is as old as I am, miss ! — ^at least she
was when "we were at school. And Fanny Parker — Mrs.
Mountain who now is — was seven months older, and we
were in the French class together ; and I have no idea that
our age is to be made the subject of remarks and ridicule
by our children, and I will thank you to spare it, if you
please ! Do you consider your mother too old, George ? ’
VIEGINIANS A a
706
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ I am glad my mother is of your age, Aunt Lambert,’
says George, in the most sentimental manner.
Strange infatuation of passion — singular perversity of
reason ! At some period before liis marriage, it not unfre-
quently happens that a man actually is fond of his mother-
in-law ! At this time our good general vowed, and with
some reason, that he was jealous. Mrs. Lambert made
much more of George than of any other person in the
family. She dressed up Theo to the utmost advantage in
order to meet him ; she was for ever caressing her, and
appealing to her when he spoke. It was, ‘ Don’t you
think he looks well ? ’ — ‘ Don’t you think he looks pale,
Theo, to-day ? ’ — Don’t you think he has been sitting
up over his books too much at night ? ’ and so forth. If he
h^ a cold, she would have liked to make gruel for him and
see his feet in hot water. She sent him recipes of her own
for his heslth. When he was away, she never ceased
talking about him to her daughter. I dare say Miss Theo
liked the subject well enough. When he came, she was
sure to be wanted in some other part of the house, and
would bid Theo take care of him till she returned. Wliy,
before she returned to the room, could you hear her talking
outside the door to her youngest innocent children, to her
servants in the upper regions, and so forth ? When she
reappeared, was not Mr. George always standing or sitting
at a considerable distance from Miss Theo — except, to be
sure, on that one day when she had just happened to
drop her scissors, and he had naturally stooped down to
pick them up ? Why was she blushing ? Were not
youthful cheeks made to blush, and roses to bloom in the
spring ? Not that mamma ever noted the blushes, but
began quite an artless conversation about this or that,
as she sat down brimful of happiness to her work-table.
And at last there came a letter from Virginia in Madam
Esmond’s neat, w^eU-known hand, and over which George
trembled and blushed before he broke the seal. It was in
answer to the letter which he had sent home, respecting
his brother’s commission, and his own attachment to
Miss Lambert. Of his intentions respecting Harry, Madam
Esmond fully approved. As for his marriage, she was
not against early marriages. She would take his picture
of Miss Lambert with the allowance that was to be made for
lovers’ portraits, and hope, for his sake, that the young lady
TWO MORE TRAGEDIES ARE BEGUN 707
was all he described her to be. With money, as jihidam
Esmond gathered from her son’s letter, she dfd not appear
to be provided at all, which was a pity, as, though wealthy
in land, their family had but little ready-money. However,
by Heaven’s blessing, there was plenty at home for children
and children’s children, and the wiv^ of her sons should
share all she had. When she heard more at length from
Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, she would reply for her part more
fully. She did not pretend to say that she had not greater
hopes for her son, as a gentleman of his name and prospects
might pretend to the hand of the first lady in the land ;
but as Heaven had willed that her son’s choice should fall
upon her old friend’s daughter, she acquiesced, and w^ould
w^elcome George’s wife as her own child. This letter w’as
brought by Mr. Van den Bosch of Albany, w’ho had lately
bought a very large estate in Virginia, and w’ho was bound
for England to put his granddaughter to a boarding-school.
She, Madam Esmond, w^as not mercenary, nor was it because
this young lady was heiress of a very great fortune that
she desired her sons to pay Mr. Van d. B. every attention.
Their properties lay close together, and could Harry find
in the young lady those qualities of person and mind suitable
for a companioii for life^ at least she w’ould have the satis-
faction of seeing both her children near her in her declining
years. Madam Esmond concluded by sending her affec-
tionate compliments to Mrs. Lambert, from whom she
begged to hear further, and her blessing to the young lady
who was to be her daughter-in-law.
The letter w^as not cordial, and the writer evidently but
half satisfied ; but, such as it was, her consent was here
formally announced. How eagerly George ran away to
Soho with the long-desired new^s in his pocket ! I suppose
our worthy friends there must have read his new’s in his
countenance — else w’hy should Mrs. Lambert take her
daughter’s hand and kiss her wdth such uncommon w-armth,
when George announced that he had received letters from
home ? Then, with a break in his voice, a pallid face, and
a considerable tremor, turning to Mr. Lambert, he said :
‘ Madam Esmond’s letter, sir, is in reply to one of mine,
in which I acquainted her that I had formed an attachment
in England, for which I asked my mother’s approval. She
gives her consent, I am grateful to say, and I have to pray
my dear friends to be equally kind to me.’
THE VIRGINIANS
m
* God bless thee, my dear boy ! ’ says the good general,
laying a hand on the young man’s head. ^ I am glad to
have thee a son, George. There, there, don’t go down
on your knees, young folks I George may, to be sure, and
thank God for giving him the best little wife in all England,
y^, my dear, except when you were ill, you never caused
me a heartache — and happy is the man, I say, who wins
thee ! ’
I have no doubt the young people knelt before their
parents, as w^as the fashion in those days ; and am perfectly
certain that Mrs. Lambert kissed both of them, and likewise
bedewed her pocket-handkerchief in the most plentiful
manner. Hetty wras not present at this sentimental scene,
and when she heard of it, spoke with considerable asperity,
and a laugh that was by no means pleasant, saying : ^ Is
this ail the news you have to give me ? Why, I have
known it these months past. Do you think I have no
eyes to see, and no ears to hear, indeed ? ’ But in private
she was much more gentle. She flung herself on her sister’s
neck, embracing her passionately, and vowing that never,
never would Theo find any one to love her like her sister.
With Theo she became entirely mild and humble. She
could not abstain from her Jokes and satire with George,
but he was too happy to he^ her much, and too generous
not to see the cause of her Jealousy.
When ail parties concerned came to read Madam Es-
mond’s letter, that document, it is true, appeared rather
vague. It contained only a promise that she would receive
the yoimg people at her house, and no sort of proposal for
a settlement. The general shook his head over the letter —
he did not think of examining it until some days after
the engagement had been made between George and his
daughter : but now he read Madam Esmond’s words,
they gave him but small encouragement.
‘ Bah ! ’ says George. ‘ I shSl have three hundred
pounds for my tragedy. I can easily write a play a year ;
and if the worst comes to the worst, we can live on that.’
‘ On that and your patrimony,’ says Theo’s father.
George now had to explain, with some hesitation, that
nrfiat with paying bills for his mother, and Harry’s com-
missicm and debts, and his own ransom — George’s patri-
mony proper w^as wellnigh spent.
Mr, Lambert’s countenance looked graver still at this
TWO MORE TRAGEDIES ARE BEGUN
700
announcement, but he saw his girl’s eyes turned towards
him \vith an alarm so tender, that he took her in his arms
and vowed that, let the worst come to the worst, his
darling should not be balked of her wish.
About the going back to Virginia, George frankly owned
that he little lik^ the notion of returning to be entirely
dependent on his mother. He gave General Lambert an
idea of his life at home, and explained how little to his taste
that slavery was. No. Why should he not stay in England,
write more tragedies, study for the bar, get a place, perhaps ?
Why, indeed ? He straightway began to form a plan
for another tragedy. He brought portions of his work,
from time to time, to Miss Theo and her sister: Hetty
yawned over the work, but Theo pronounced it to be still
more beautiful and admirable than the last, which was
perfect.
The engagement of our young friends was made known
to the members of their respective families, and announced
to Sir Miles Warrington, in a ceremonious letter from his
nephew. Eor a while Sir Miles saw no particular objection
to the marriage ; though, to be sure, considering his name
and prospects, Mr. Warrington might have looked higher.
The truth was, that Sir Miles imagined that Madam
Esmond had made some considerable settlement on her
son, and that his circumstances were more than easy. But
when he heard that George was entirely dependent on his
mother, and that his own small patrimony was dissipated,
as Harry’s had been before. Sir Miles’s indignation at his
nephew’s imprudence knew no bounds ; he could not
find words to express his horror and anger at the want
of principle exhibited by both these unhappy young men :
he thought it his duty to speak his mind about them,
and wrote Ms opinion to Ms sister Esmond in Virginia.
As for General and Mrs. Lambert, who passed for respectable
persons, was it to be borne that such people should inveigle
a pemiiless young man into a marriage with their penniless
daughter ? Regarding them, and George’s behaviour.
Sir Miles fully explained Ms views to Madam Esmond,
gave half a finger to George whenever his nephew called
on him in town, and did not even invite Mm to partake of
the famous family small-beer. Towards Harry his uncle
somewhat unbent ; Harry had done his duty in the cam-
paign, and was mentioned with praise in high quarters.
710
THE VIRGmA^'S
He had sowed his \nld oats, — he at least was endeavouring
to amend ; but George was a young prodigal, fast careering
to rain, and his name was only mentioned in the family
with a groan. Are there any poor fellows nowadays,
I wonder, w’hose polite families faU on them and persecute
them ; groan over them and stone them, and hand stones
to their neighbours that they may do likewise ? All the
patrimony spent ! Gracious Heavens ! Sir Miles turned
pale w^hen he saw- his nephew coming. Lady Warrington
prayed for Mm as a dangerous reprobate ; and, in the
meantime, George w'as w’alking the town, quite unconscious
that he -was occasioning so much WTath and so much
devotion. He took little Miley to the play and brought
him back again. He sent tickets to his aunt and cousins
which they could not refuse, you know'; it would look
too marked w'ere they to break altogether. So they not
only took the tickets, but whenever country constituents
came to town they asked for more, taking care to give
the very w'orst motives to Greorge’s intimacy with the
theatre, and to supp<^e that he and the actresses w^ere on
terms of the most disgraceful intimacy. An august per-
sonage having been to the theatre, and expressed his
approbation of Mr. Warrington’s drama to Sir Miles, when
he attended his r-y-l h-ghn-ss’s levee at Saville House,
Sir Miles, to be sure, modified his opinion regarding the
piece, and spoke henceforth more respectfully of it. Mean-
w'hile, as w'e have said, George w'as passing Ms life entirely
careless of the opinion of sdl the uncles, aunts, and cousins
in the world.
Most of the Esmond cousins w'ere at least more polite
and cordial than George’s kinsfolk of the Warrington
mde. In spite of liis behaviour over the cards, Lord Castle-
w'^ood, George alw^ays maintained, had a liking for our
Virginians, and George w^as pleased enough to be in Ms
company. He w'as a far abler man than many who suc-
ceeded in life. He had a good name, and somehow only
stained it ; a considerable wit, and nobody trusted it ; and
a very shrew^d experience and knowledge of mankind,
wMch made him mistrust them, and Mmself most of all,
and wMeh perhaps w^as the bar to his own advancement.
My Lady Castlewood, a w'oman of the w'orld, w'ore alw'ays
a Waa:>d mask, and received Mr. George with perfect civility,
and w'elcomed Mm to lose as many guineas as ho liked
TWO MORE TRAGEDIES ARE BEGUN
711
at her ladyship’s card-tables. Between Mr. William
and the Virginian brothers there never was any love lost ;
but, as for Lady Maria, though her love affair was over,
she had no rancour ; she professed for her cousins a very
great regard and affection, a part of which the young
gentlemen very gratefully returned. She w^as charmed to
hear of Harry’s valour in the campaign ; she was delighted
with George’s success at the theatre ; she was for ever
going to the play, and had all the favourite passages of
Carpezan by heart. One day, as Mr. George and Miss
Theo were taking a sentimental w'alk in Kensington Gar-
dens, whom should they light upon but their cousin Maria
in company vith a gentleman in a smart suit and hand-
some laced-hat, and who should the gentleman be but
his Majesty King Louis of Hungary, Mr. Hagan t He
saluted the party, and left them presently. Lady Maria
had only just happened to meet him. Mr. Hagan came
sometimes, he said, for quiet, to study his parts in Ken-
sington Gardens, and George and the two ladies walked
together to Lord Castlewood’s door in Kensington Square,
Lady Maria uttering a thousand compliments to Theo upon
her good looks, upon her virtue, upon her future happiness,
upon her papa and mamma, upon her destined husband, upon
her paduasoy cloak and dear little feet and shoe-buckles.
Harry happened to come to London that evening, and
slept at his accustomed quarters. When George appeared
at breakfast, the captain w^as already in the room (the
custom of that day was to call all army gentlemen captains),
and looking at the letters on the breakfast-table.
‘ Why, George,’ he cries, ‘ there is a letter from Maria I ’
" Little boy bring it from Common Garden last night —
Master George asleep,’ says Gumbo.
‘ WThat can it be about ? ’ asks Harry, as George peruses
his letter with a queer expression of face.
‘ About my play, to be sure,’ George answers, tearing
up the paper, and still wearing his queer look.
‘ What, she is not vTiting love-letters to you, is she,
Georgy ? ’
‘ No, certainly not to me,’ replies the other. But he
spoke no word more about the letter ; and when at dinner-
in Dean Street, Mrs. Lambert said, ‘ So you met somebody
walking with the King of Hungary yesterday in Kensington
Gardens ? ’
712
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ What little tell-tale told you ? ’
‘ A mere casual rencontre — the king goes there to study
his parts, and Lady Maria hap^ned to be crossing the
garden to visit some of the <dher long’s servants at Kensing-
ton Palace.’ And so there was an end to that matter
for the time being.
Other events were at hand fraught with interest to our
Virginians. One evening after Christmas, the two gentle-
men, vlth a few more friends, were met round General
Lambert’s supper-table, and among the company was
Harry’s new colonel of the 67th, Major-General Wolfe. The
young general was more than ordinarily grave. The con-
versation all related to the war. Events of great importance
were pending. The great minister now in power was
determined to carry on the war on a much more extended
scale than had been attempted hitherto : an army was
ordered to Germany to help Prince Ferdinand, another
great expedition was preparing for America, and here,
says Mr. Lambert, ‘ I wtQ give you the health of the com-
mander — glorious oamp^gn, and a happy return to him ! ’
* Why do you not dmik the toast, General James ? ’
asked the hostess of her guest.
‘ He must not drink his own toast,’ says General Lambert ;
^ it is we must do that ! ’
What ? was James appointed ? — All the ladies must
drink such a toast as that, and they mingled their kind
voices with the applause of the rest of the company.
Why did he look so mdancholy ? the ladies asked of
one another when they withdrew. In after days they
remembered his pale face.
* Perhaps he has been parting from his sweetheart,’
suggests tender-hearted Mrs. Lambert. And at this senti-
mental notion, no doubt all the ladies looked sad.
The gentlemen, meanwhile, continued their talk about
the war and its chances. Mr. Wolfe did not contradict
the speakers when they said that the expedition was to
be directed against Canada.
‘ Ah, sir,’ says Harry, ‘ I wish your regiment was going
with you, and that I might pay another visit to my old
friend at Quebec.’
'^at, had Harry been there ? Yes. He described his
visit to the plaee five years before, and knew the city,
and the neighbourhood, w^ell. He lays a number of bits
TWO TKAGEDIJES ARE BEGUN
713
of biscuit on the table before him, and makes a couple of
rivulets of punch on each side. ‘ This fork is the Isle
d’Orleans,’ says he, ‘ with the north and south branches
of St. Lawrence on each side. Here’s the Low town, with
a battery — how many guns was mounted there in our
time, brother — but at long shots from the St. Joseph
shore you might play the same game. Here’s w’hat they
call the little river, the St. Charles, and a bridge of boats
with a tete du pont over to the place of arms. Here’s
the citadel, and here’s convents — ever so many convents —
and the cathedral ; and here, outside the lines to the w*est
and south, is what they call the Plains of Abraham —
where a certain little affair took place, do you remember,
brother ? He and a young officer of the Roussillon regiment
ga pa’d at each other for twenty minutes, and George
pinked him, and then they jur€6. each other an amitie
eterndle. Well it was for George : for his second saved
his life on that awful day of Braddock’s defeat. He was
a fine little fellow, and I give his toast : ‘ Je hois a la
sante du Chevalier ^ Florae ! ’
‘ What, can you speak French too, Harry ? ’ asks Mr.
Wolfe. The young man looked at the general with eager
eyes.
* Yes,’ says he, ‘ I can speak, but not so well as George.’
‘ But he remembers the city, and can place the batteries,
you see, and knows the ground a thousand times better
than I do ! ’ cries the elder brother.
The two elder officers exchanged looks with one another ;
Mr. Lambert smiled and nodded, as if in reply to the mute
queries of his comrade : on which the other spoke. ‘ Mr.
Harry,’ he said, ‘if you have had enough of fine folks,
and White’s, and horse-racing ’
‘ Oh, sir ! ’ says the young man, turning very red.
‘And if you have a mind to a sea- voyage at a short
notice, come and see me at my lodgings to-morrow.’
What was that sudden uproar of cheers which the ladies
heard in their drawing-room ? It was the hurrah which
Harry Warrington gave when he leaped up at hearing
the general’s invitation.
The women saw no more of the gentlemen that night.
General Lambert had to be aw^ay upon his business early
next morning, before seeing any of his family ; nor had
A a 3
714
THE VIRGmANS
he mentioned a word of Harry’s outbreak on the previous
evening. But when he rejoined his folks at dinner, a look
at Miss Hetty’s face irdormed the worthy gentleman
that she knew what had passed on the night previous,
smd what was about to happen to the young Virginian.
After dinner Mrs. Lambert sat demurely at her work,
Mi^ Theo took her book of Italian poetry. Neither of
the general’s customary guests happened to be present
that evening.
He took little Hetty’s hand in his, and began to talk
with her. He did not allude to the subject which he knew
was uppermost in her mind, except that by a more than
ordinary gentleness and kindness he perhaps caused her
to understand that her thoughts were known to him.
‘ I have breakfasted,’ says he, ‘ with James Wolfe this
morning, and our friend Harry was of the party. When
he and the other guests were gone, I remained and talked
with James about the great expedition on which he is
going to sail. Would th^ his brave father had lived a few
months longer to see him come back covered with honours
from Louisbourg, and knowing that all England was
looking to him to achieve still greater glory t Jam^ is
dreadfully ill in body — so ill that I am frightened for him —
and not a little depressed in mind at having to part from
the young lady whom he has loved so long. A little rest,
he thinks, might have set his shattered frame up ; and
to call her his has been the object of his life. But, great
as his love is (and he is as romantic as one of you young
folks of seventeen), honour and duty are greater, and he
leaves home, and wife, and ease, and health, at their
bidding. Every man of honour would do the like ; every
woman who loves him truly would buckle on his armour
for him. James goes to take leave of his mother to-night ;
and though she loves him devotedly, and is one of the
tenderest women in the world, I am sure she will show
no sign of weakness at his going away.’
' When does he sail, papa ? ’ the girl asked.
‘ He will be on board in five days.’ And Hetty knew
quite well who sailed with him.
715
CHAPTER LXVIII
IN WHICH HABBY GOES WESTWABD
JR tender hearte are
averse to all ideas and
descriptions of parting;
and I shall therefore
say nothing of Harry
Warrington’s feelings
at taking leave of his
brother and friends.
Were not thousands of
men in the same plight?
Had not Mr. Wolfe his
mother to kiss (his
brave father had quit-
ted life during his son’s
absence on the glorious
Louisbourg campaign),
and his sweetheart to
clasp in a farewell em-
brace ? Had not stout Admiral Holmes, before sailing
westward with his squadron, the Somerset, the Terrible,
the Northumberland, the Royal William, the Trident, the
Diana, the Sea-horse — his own flag being hoisted on board
the Dublin — to take leave of Mrs. and the Misses Holmes ?
Was Admiral Saunders, who sailed the day after him,
exempt from human feeling ? Away go William and his
crew of jovial sailors, ploughing through the tumbling
waves, and poor Black-eyed Susan on shore watches the
ship as it dwindles in the simset !
It dwindles in the west. The night falls darkling over
the ocean. They are gone : but their hearts are at home
yet awhile. In silence, with a heart inexpressibly soft
and tender, how each man thinks of those he has left.
What a chorus of pitiful prayer rises up to the Father,
at sea and on shore, on that parting night : at home by
the vacant bedside, where the wife Imeels in tears ; round
the fire, where the mother and children together pour out
their supplications : or on deck, where the seafarer looks
up to the stars of heaven, as the ship cleaves through the
716
THE VIRGmANS
roaring midnight waters ! To-morrow the sun rises upon
our common life again, and we commence our daily task
of toil and duty.
George accompanies his brother, and stays awhile with
him at Portsmouth whilst they are waiting for a wind.
He shakes Mr. Wolfe’s hand, looks at his pale face for the
last time, and sees the vessels depart amid the clangour
of bells, and the thunder of cannon from the shore. Next
day he is back at his home, and at that business w’hich
is sure one of the most selfish and absorbing of the world’s
occupations, to which almost every man w’ho is thirty
years old has served ere this his apprenticeship. He has
a pang of sadness, as he looks in at the lodgings to the
little room which Harry used to occupy, and sees his
half-burned papers still in the grate. In a few minutes
he is on his way to Bean Street again, and whimpering
by the fitful firelight in the ear of the clinging sweetheart.
She is very happy — Oh, so happy ! at his return. She
is ashamed of being so. Is it not heartless to be so, when
poor Hetty is so melancholy ? Poor little Hetty ! Indeed,
it is selfish to be glad when she is in such a way. It
makes one quite WTetched to see her. ‘ Don’t, sir ! Well,
I cmgM to be wTetched, and it’s very, very wicked of me
if I’m not,’ says Theo ; and one can understand her soft-
hearted repentance. What she means by ‘Don’t’ w^ho
can tell ? I have said the room w'as dark, and the fire
burned fitfully — ^and ‘ Don’t ’ is no doubt uttered in one
of the dark fits. Enter servants with supper and lights.
The family arrives; the conversation becomes general.
The destination of the fleet is known everywhere now.
The force on board is sufficient to beat all the French in
Canada ; and, under such an officer as Wolfe, to repair
the blunders and disasters of previous campaigns. He
looked dreadfully^ ill, indeed. But he has a great soul
in a feeble body. The ministers, the country hope the
utmost from him. After supper, according to custom,
Mr. Lambert assembles his modest household, of whom
George Warrington may be said quite to form a part ;
and as he prays for all travellers by land and water, Theo
and her sister are kneeling together. And so, as the ship
speeds faorther and farther into the west, the fond thoughts
pursue it ; and the night passes, and the sun rises.
~ A day or two more, and everybody is at his books or
HARRY GOES WESTWARD
717
his usual work. As for George Warrington, that celebrated
dramatist is busy about another composition. When the
tragedy of Oarpezan had run some thirty or two-score nights,
other persons of genius took possession of the theatre.
There may have been persons who wondered how the
town could be so fickle as ever to tire of such a masterpiece
as the Tragedy — who could not bear to see the actors
dressed in other habits, reciting other men’s verses ; but
George, of a sceptical turn of mind, took the fate of his
Tragedy very philosophically, and pocketed the proceeds
with much quiet satisfaction. Prom Mr. Dodsley, the
bookseller, he had the usual compliment of a hundred
pounds ; from the manager of the theatre two hundred
or more ; and such praises from the critics and his friends,
that he set to work to prepare another piece, with which
he hoped to achieve even greater successes than by his
first performance.
Over these studies, and the other charming business
which occupies him, months pass away. Happy business I
Happiest time of youth and life, when love is first spoken
and returned ; when the dearest eyes are daily shining
welcome, and the fondest lips never tire of whispering
their sweet secrets ; w*hen the parting look that accompanies
‘ Good night ! ’ gives delightful w^arning of to-morrow ;
when the heart is so overflowing with love and happiness,
that it has to spare for all the world ; when the day closes
with glad prayers, and opens with joyful hopes ; when
doubt seems cowardice, misfortune impossible, poverty
only a sweet trial of constancy ! Theo’s elders, thankfully
remembering their own prime, sit softly by and witness
this pretty comedy performed by their young people.
And in one of his later letters, dutifully wTitten to his wife
during a temporary absence from home, George Warrington
records how he had been to look up at the windows of the dear
old house in Dean Street, and wondered who was sitting in
the chamber wdiere he and Theo had been so happy.
Meanwhile “we can learn ho'w the time passes, and our
friends are engaged, by some extracts from George’s
letters to his brother.
Prom the old window opposite Bedford Gardens,
this 20th August, 1759.
IVhy are you gone back to rugged rocks, bleak shores, burning
summers, nipping \\ inters, at home, when you might have been
718
THE VIRGINIANS
cropping ever so many laurels in Germany ? Kingsley’s are coming
back as covered with 'em as Jack-a-Green on May-day. Our six
laments did wonders ; and our horse would have done if my Lord
George Sackville only had let them. But when Prince Ferdinand
said * Charge ! ’ his lordship could not hear, or could not translate
the German word for ‘ Forward ’ ; and so we only beat the French,
without utteriy annihilating them, as we might, had Lord Granby
or Mr. Warrington had the command. My lord is come back to
town, and is snouting for a Cburt-martial. He held his head high
enough in prosperity : in misfortune he shows such a constancy of
arrogance that one almost admires him. He looks as if he rather
envied poor Mr. Byng, and the not shooting him were a manque
(Te^rds towards him.
fcieduke has had notice to get himself in readiness for departing
from this world of grandeurs and victories, and downfalls and
dmppoIntoientB. An attack of palsy has visited his royal high-
ness ; and paUida mors has justpee|^ in at his door, as it were,
and said, ‘I will call again.’ l^^ant as he was, this prince has
been noble in disgrace ; and no king has ever had a truer servant
than ours has found in his son. Why do I like the losing side always,
and am I disposed to revolt against the winners ? Your famous
Mr. P , your chiefs patron and discoverer, I have been to hear
in the House of Commons twice or thrice. I revolt against his
mamloquence. I wish some little David would topple over that
swdlin| giant. His thoughts and his language are always atti-
tudinizing. I like Barry’s manner best, though the other is the
more awfiil actor.
PoccdiOfOas gets on apace. Barry likes his part of Captain Smith ;
and, though he will have him wear a red coat and blue facings and
an epaulet, I have a fancy to dress him exactly like one of the pictures
of (^een Elizabeth’s gentlemen at Hampton Court ; with a ruff and
a square beard and square shoes. ‘ And Pocahontas — ^would you
like her to be tattooed ? ’ asks Uncle Lambert. Hagan’s part as
the warrior who is in love with her, and, seeing her partiality for
the captain, nobly rescues him from death, I trust will prove a hit.
A strange^ is fliis Hagan: his mouth full of stage plays and rant,
bat good, hraiest, and brave, if I don’t err. He is angry at having
been cast lately for Sir O’Brallaghan, in Mr. Macklin’s new farce
of Love dda-mode. He says he does not keer to disgreece his
tongue with imiteetions of that rascal brogue. As if there was
any call for imiteetions, when he has such an admirable twang of
his own !
Shall I tell you ? Shall I hide the circumstance ? Shall I hurt
your f^lin^ ? Shall I set you in a rage of jealousy, and cause you to
ask for leave to return to Europe ? Emow, then, that though
Ccarpezan is long since dead, Cousin Maria is for ever coming to the
play-house. Tom Spencer has spied her out night after night in
the gallery, and she comes on the nights when Hagan performs.
Qxiiek, Burroughs, Mr, Warrington’s boots and portmanteau!
HARRY GOES WESTWARD
719
Order a chaise and four for Portsmouth immediately I The letter
which I burned one morning when we were at breakfast (I may let the
cat out of the bag, now puss has such a prodigious way to run) was
from Cousin M., hinting that she wished me to tell no tales about her:
but I can’t help just whispering to you that Maria at this moment
is busy consoling herself as fast as possible. Shall 1 spoil sport?
Shall I tell her brother ? Is the affair any business of mine ? What
have the Esmonds done for you and me but win our money at cards ?
Yet I like our noble cousin. It seems to me that he would be good
if he could — or rather, he would have been once. He has been
set on a wrong way of life, from which ’tis now probably too late
to rescue him. 0 heaii agricol<ie/ Our Virginia was dull, but
let us thank Heaven w'e w^ere bred there. We were made little
slaves, but not slaves to wickedness, gambling, bad male and
female company. It W’as not until my poor Harry left home that
he fell among thieves. I mean thieves en grand^ such as waylaid
him and stripped him on English high-roads. I consider you none
the worse because you were the unlucky one, and had to deliver
your purse up. And now you are going to retrieve, and make a
good name for yourself ; and kill more * French dragons ’, and become
a great commander. And our mother will talk of her son the
captain, the colonel, the general, and have his picture painted with
all his stars and epaulete, when poor I shall be but a dawdling
poetaster, or, if we may hope for the best, a snug placeman, with
a little box at Richmond or Kew, and a half -score of little picaninnies,
that will come and bob curtsies at the garden-gate when their
imcle the general rides up on his great charger, with his aide de
camp’s pockets filled with gingerbread for the nephews and nieces.
’Tis for you to brandish the sword of Mars. As for me I look
forward to a quiet life : a quiet little home, a quiet little library
full of books, and a little Some one d^dce ridenUm, dtdce loquerttem^
on t’other side of the fire, as I scribble away at my papers. I am so
pleased with this prospect, so utterly contented and happy, that
I feel afraid as I think of it, lest it should escape me : ana, even to
my dearest Hal, am shy of speaking of my happiness. What is
ambition to me, with this certainty ? What do I care for wars,
with this beatific peace smiling near ?
Our mother’s friend. Mynheer Van den Bosch, has been away
on a tour to discover his family in Holland, and, strange to say,
has found one. Miss (who was intended by maternal solicitude to
be a wife for your worsldp) has had six months at Kensington School,
and is coming out with a hundred pretty accomplishments, which
are to complete her a perfect fine lady. Her [grandjpapa brought
her to make a curtsy in Dean Street, and a mighty elegant curtsy
she made. Though she is scarce seventeen, no dowager of sixty
can be more at her ease. She conversed with Aunt Lambert on
an equal footing ; she treated the girls as chits — to Hetty’s wrath
and Iheo’s amusement. She talked politics with the general, and
the last routs, dresses, operas, fashions, scandal, with such perfect
im
THE VIRGmAXS
thBtf but far & blunder or two, you might have fancied Miss
L^dia was bora in Mayfair. At the Court end of the town she
will live, she s&yR ; and has no patience with her father, who
has a lodging in ^Monument Yard. For th<^ who love a brown
beauty, a prettier little mt^nonne creature cannot be seen. But
my taste, you know, dearest brother, and ....
Here follows a page of raptures and quotations of verse,
which, out of a regard for the reader, and the WTiter’s
memory, the editor of the pr^nt pages declines to reprint.
Grentlemen and ladies of a certain age may remember the
time w'hen they indulged in these rapturous follies on their
ow'n accounts ; w’hen the praises of the charmer were
for ever warbling from their bps or trickling from their
pens ; when the flowers of life w^ere in full bloom, and all
the birds of spring were singing. The twigs are now bare,
perhaps, and the leaves have fallen ; but, for all that,
shall W’e not remember the vernal time ? As for you,
young people, whose May (or April, is it ?) has not com-
yet, you need not be detained over other folks’ love-
rhaj^odies ; depend on it, when your spring-season arrives,
kindly Nature will warm all your flowers into bloom, and
rouse your glad bosoms to pour out their full song.
CHAPTER LXIX
A LITTLE I^mOCBNT
EOBOE Warrington has mentioned
in the letter just quoted, that in
spite of my Lord Castlewood’s
previous play transactions with
Harry, my lord and George
remained friends, and met on
terms of good kinsmanship. Did
George want franks, or an intro-
duction at Court, or a place in
the House of Lords to hear
a debate, his cousin was alw^ays
ready to serve him, was a
pleasant and witty companion,
and would do anything which
might promote his relative’s in-
termts, provided his own w^ere not prejudiced.
A LITTLE INNWENT
721
Now he even went so far a^j to promise that he would
do his best with the people in power to provide a place
for Mr. George Warrington, who daily showed a greater
disinclination to return to his native country, and place
himself once more under the maternal servitude. George
had not merely a sentimental motive for remaining in
England : the pursuits and society of London pleased him
infinitely better than any which he could have at home.
A planter’s life of idleness might have suited him could
he have enjoyed independence with it. But in Virginia
he was only the first, and, as he thought, the worst-treated,
of his mother’s subjects. He dreaded to think of returning
with his young bride to his home, and of the life w’hich
she would be destined to lead there. Better freedom and
poverty in England, with congenial society, and a hope
perchance of future distinction, than the wearisome routine
of home life, the tedious subordination, the frequent
bickerings, the certain jealousies and differences of opinion,
to which he must subject his wife so soon as they turned
their faces homeward.
So Lord Castlewood’s promise to provide for George
was very eagerly accepted by the Virginian. My lord had
not provided very well for his own brother to be sure,
and his own position, peer as he w'as, \vas anything but
enviable ; but v/e believe what w^e wish to believe, and
George Warrington chose to put great stress upon his
kinsman’s offer of patronage. Unlike the Warrington
family. Lord Castlew^ood was quite gracious when he
was made acquainted with George’s engagement to Miss
Lambert ; came to wait upon her parents ; praised George
to them and the young lady to George, and made himself
so prodigiously agreeable in their company that these
charitable folk forgot his bad reputation, and thought it
must be a very wicked and scandalous world which maligned
him. He said, indeed, that he was improved in their
society, as every man must be who came into it. Among
them he w^as witty, lively, good for the time being. He
left his wickedness and w’orldliness with his cloak in the
hall, and only put them on again when he stepped into
his chair. What w^orldling on life’s voyage does not
know of some such harbour of rest and calm, some haven
where he puts in out of the storm ? Very likely Lord
Castle\TOod w^as actually better wiiilst he stayed with
m THE VIRGINIANS
those good people, and for the time being at least, no
hypocrite.
And I dare say the Lambert eiders thought no worse
of his lordship for openly proclaiming his admiration for
Miss Hieo. It was quite genuine, and he did not profess
it was very deep.
‘ It don’t affect my sleep, and I am not going to break
my heart because Miss Lambert prefers somebody else,’
he remarked. ‘ Only I wish when I was a young man,
madam, I had had the good fortune to meet with somebody
so innocent and good as your daughter. I might have
been kept out of a deal of harm’s way : but innocent and
good young women did not fall into mine, or they would
have made me better than I am.’
‘ Sure, my lord, it is not too late ! ’ says Mrs. Lambert,
very softly.
Oastlewood started back, misunderstanding her.
* Not too late, madam ? ’ he inquired.
She blushed. ‘ It is too late to court my dear daughter,
my lord, but not too late to repent. We read, ’tis never
too late to do that. If others have been received at the
eleventh hour, is there any reason why you should give
up hope ? ’
‘Perhaps I know my own heart better than you,’ he
says in a plaintive tone. ‘ I can speak Prench and German
very well, and why ? because I was taught both in the
nursery. A man who learns them late can never get the
practice of them on his tongue. And so ’tis the case with
goodness, I can’t learn it at my age. I can only see others
practise it, and admire them. When I am on — on the side
opposite to Lazarus, will Miss Theo give me a drop of
water ? Don’t frowm ! I know I shall be there, Mrs.
Lambert. Some folks are doomed so ; and I think some
of our family are amongst these. Some people are vacil-
lating, and one hardly knows which w^ay the scale will
turn. Whereas some are predestined angels, and fly
heavenwwds naturally, and do what they will.’
* Oh, my lord, and why should you not be of the pre-
destine ? Whilst there is a day left — whilst there is an
hour — there is hope ! ’ says the fond matron.
‘ I know what is passing in your mind, my dear madam —
nay, I read your prayers in your looks ; but how can they
avail ? ’ Lord Oastlewood asked s^ly. ‘ You don’t
A LITTLE INNOCENT
723
know all, my good lady. You don’t know w^hat a life
ours is of the world ; how early it began ; how' selfish
Nature, and then necessity and education have made us.
It is Fate holds the reins of the chariot, and we can’t
escape our doom. I know’ better : I see better people :
I go my ow’n w’ay. My owti ? No, not mine — Fate’s ;
and it is not altogether without pity for us, since it
allow’s us, from time to time, to see such people as you.’
And he took her hand and looked her full in the face,
and bow’ed with a melancholy grace. Every word he
said w^as true. No greater error than to suppose that
w’eak and bad men are strangers to good feelings, or deficient
of sensibility. Only the good feeling does not last — nay,
the tears are a kind of debauch of sentiment, as old
libertines are said to find that the tears and grief of their
victims add a zest to their pleasure. But Mrs. Lambert
knew’ little of w’hat w’as passing in this man’s mind (how’
should she ?) and so prayed for him with the fond persis-
tence of woman. He w’as much better — ^yes, much better
than he w^as supposed to be. He was a most interesting
man. There were hopes, w’hy should there not be the most
precious hopes for Mm still ?
It remains to be seen w’hich of the two speakers formed
the correct estimate of my lord’s character. Meanwhile,
if the gentleman w’as right, the lady was mollified, and
her kind washes and prayers for tMs experienced sinner’s
repentance, if they were of no avail for Ms amendment,
at least could do him no harm. Kind-souled doctors
(and what good w^oman is not of the faculty ?) look after
a reprobate as physicians after a perilous case. When
the patient is converted to health their interest ceases in
him, and they drive to feel pulses and prescribe medicines
elsew^here.
But, while the malady was under treatment, our kind
lady could not see too much of her sick man. Quite an
intimacy sprung up betw’een my Lord Castlew^ood and the
Lamberts. I am not sure that some worldly views might
not suit even with good Mrs. Lambert’s spiritual plans (for
who know^s into what pure Eden, though guarded by flaming-
sworded angels, w^orldliness w’ill not creep ?). Her son
was about to take orders. My Lord Castlew^ood feared
very much that Ms present chaplain’s, Mr. Sampson’s,
careless life and heterodox conversations might lead Mm
724
THE VIROmAXS
to give up his chaplaincy ; in which case, my lord hinted,
the little modest cure would be vacant, and at the service
of some young divine of good principles and good manners,
who would be content with a small stipend, and a small
but friendly congregation.
Thus an acquaintance was established between the two
families, and the ladies of Castlewood, always on their
good behaviour, came more than once to make their curtsies
in Mrs, Lambert’s draving-room. They were civil to the
parents and the young ladies. My Lady Castlewood’s
card assemblies were open to Mrs. Lambert and her family.
There was play, certainly — ^all the world played — ^his
Majesty, the bishops, every peer and peeress in the land.
But nobody need play who did not like ; and surely nobody
need have scruples regarding the practice, when such
august and vendible personages were daily found to abet
it. More than once Mrs. Lambert made her appearance
at her ladyship’s routs, and w^as grateful for the welcome
which she received, and pleas^ with the admiration
which her daughters excited.
Mention has been made, in a foregoing page and letter,
of an American family of Dutch extraction, who had come
to Ikigland very strongly recommended by Madam Esmond,
their Virginian neighbour, to her sons in Europe. The
view’s expressed in Madam Esmond’s letter were so clear,
that that arch match-maker, Mrs. Lambert, could not
but understand them. As for George, he was engaged
already ; as for poor Hetty’s flame, Harry, he w^as gone on
service, for which circumstance Hetty’s mother w^as not
very sorry perhaps. She laughingly told George that he
ou^t to obey his mamma’s injunctions, break ofl his
engagemsent with Then, and make up to Miss Lydia, who
w*as ten times — ^ten times I a hundred times as rich as her
poor girl, and certainly much handsomer. ‘ Yes, indeed,’
says George, ‘ that I own : she is handsomer, and she
is richer, and perhaps even cleverer.’ (All which praises
Mrs. Lambert but half liked.) ‘ But say she is all these ?
So is Mr, Johnson much cleverer than I am : so is, w^hom
shall we say ? — so is Mr. Hagan the actor much taller
and handsomer : so is Sir James Lowiilier much richer :
yet pray, ma’am, do you suppose I am going to be jealous
of my one of these three, or think my Theo w’ould jilt
me for their sakes f Wliy should I not allow that Miss
A UTTLE IXNWEXT
725
Lydia is handsomer, then ? and richer, and clever, too,
and lively, and well bred, if you insist on it, and an angel
if you will have it so V Theo is not afraid : art thou,
cliild^V ’
‘ Xo, George,’ says Theo, with such an honest look
of the eyes, as would convince any scepticism, or shame
any jealousy. And if, after this pair of speeches, mamma
takes occasion to leave the room for a minute to fetch her
scissors, or her thimble, or a boot-jack and slippers, or
the cross and ball on the top of St. PauTs, or her pocket-
handkerchief which she has forgotten in the parlour — if,
I say, Mrs. Lambert quits the room on any errand or
pretext, natural or preposterous, I shall not be in the
least surprised, if, at her return in a couple of minutes,
she finds George in near proximity to Theo, who has a
heightened colour, and whose hand George is just dropping,
I shall not have the least idea of what they have been doing.
Have you, madam ? Have you any remembrance of
what used to happen when Mr. Grundy came a-courting ?
Are you, who, after all, were not in the room with our young
people, going to cry out fie and for shame ? Then fie
and for shame upon you, Mrs. Grundy !
Well, Harry being aw'ay, and Theo and George irrevocably
engaged, so that there was no possibility of bringing Madam
Esmond’s little plans to bear, why should not IVks. Lambert
have plans of her own ; and if a rich, handsome, beautiful
little wife should fall in his w’ay, why should not Jack
Lambert from Oxford have her ? So thinks mamma,
who was alw^ays thinking of marrying and giving in marriage,
and so she prattles to General Lambert, who, as usual,
calls her a goose for her pains. At any rate, Mrs. Lambert
says beauty and riches are no objection ; at any rate,
Madam Esmond desired that this family should be hospit-
ably entertained, and it w’as not her fault that Harry was
gone away to Canada. Would the general wish him to
come back ; leave the army and his reputation, perhaps ;
yes, and come to England and marry this American, and
break poor Hetty’s heart — ^would her father wish that ?
Let us spare further arguments, and not be so rude as to
hint that Mr. Lambert w^as in the right in calling a fond
wife by the name of that absurd splay-footed bird, annually
sacrificed at the Feast of St. Michael.
In those early days, there w'ere vast distinctions of rank
THE VIBGINIANB
7'>6
drauTi between the Court and City people : and Mr. Van
den Bosch, when he first came to London, scarcely associated
with any but the latter sort. He had a lodging near his
agent’s in the city. When his pretty girl came from
school for a holiday, he took her an airing to Islington or
Higiigate, or an occasional promenade in the Artillery
Ground in Bunhill Melds. They went to that Baptist
meeting-house in Finsbury Fields, and on the sly to see
l^lr. Garrick once or twice, or that funny rogue Mr. Foote,
at the Little Theatre. To go to a lord mayor’s feast
was a treat to the gentleman of the highest order : and
to dance with a young mercer at Hampstead Assembly
gave the utmost delight to the young lady. When George
first went to w’ait upon his mother’s friends, he found
our old acquaintance, Mr. Draper, of the Temple, sedulous
in hk attentions to her ; and the lawyer, who was married,
toM Mr. Warrington to look out, as the young lady had
a plum to her fortune. Mr. Drabshaw, a young <Jiaker
gentleman, and nephew of Mr. Trail, Madam Esmond’s
Bristol agent, was also in constant attendance upon the
young lady, and in dreadful alarm and suspicion when
Mr. Warrington first made his appearance. Wishing to
do honour to his mother’s neighbours, Mr. Warrington
invited them to an entertainment at his own apartments ;
and who should so naturally meet them as his friends
from Soho ? Not one of them but was forced to own
little Miss Lydia’s beauty. She had the foot of a fairy ;
the arms, neck, flashing eyes of a little brown huntress
of Diana. She had brought a little plaintive accent from
home with her — of which I, rmi qui votes parle^ have heard
a hundred gross Cockney imitations, and watched as many
absurd disguises, and which I say (in moderation) is charm-
ing in the mouth of a charming woman. Who sets up to
say No, forsooth ? You dear Miss Whittington, with
whose A’s fate has dealt so unkindly ? — ^you lovely Miss
Nicol Jarvie, with your northern burr ? — ^you beautiful
Miss Molony, with your Dame Street warble ? All accents
are pretty from pretty lips, and who shall set the standard
up ? Shall it be a rose, or a thistle, or a shamrock, or a
sto and stripe? As for Miss Lydia’s accent, I have no
doubt it was -not -odious even from the first day when
she set foot on these polite shores, otherwise Mr. Warrington,
as a man of taste, had certainly disapproved of her manner
A LUTLE INNOCENT
727
of talking, and her schoolmistress at Kensington had not
done her duty by her pupO.
After the six months were over, during which, according
to her father’s calculation, she was to learn all the accom-
plishments procurable at the Kensington academy, Miss
Lydia returned nothing loath to her grandfather, and took
her place in the world. A narrow* world at first it was
to her ; but she w*as a resolute little person, and resolved
to enlarge her sphere in society ; and whither she chose
to lead the w’ay, the obedient grandfather followed her.
He had been thw^arted himself in early life, he said, and
little good came of the severity he underwent. He had
thwarted his own son, who had turned out but ill. As
for little Lyddy, he was determined she should have as
pleasant a life as was possible. Did not Mr. George think
he w*as right ? ’Twas said in Virginia — ^he did not know
w*ith what reason^ — that the young gentlemen of Castle-
wood had been happier if Madam Esmond had allowed
them a little of their own way. George could not gainsay
this public rumour, or think of inducing the benevolent
old gentleman to alter his plans respecting his grand-
daughter. As for the Lambert family, how could they
do otherwise than w’elcome the kind old man, the parent
so tender and liberal, Madam Esmond’s good friend ?
Wlien miss came from school, grandpapa removed
from Monument Yard to an elegant house in Bloomsbury ;
whither they w*ere follow*ed at first by their City friends.
Tliere w^ere merchants from Virginia Walk ; there were
w*orthy tradesmen, w’ith whom the w*orthy old merchant
had dealings ; there were their ladies and daughters and
sons, who were all highly gracious to Miss Lyddy. It w*ould
be a long task to describe how'^ these disappeared one by
one — ^how there w*ere no more junketings at Belsize, or
trips to Highgate, or Saturday jaunts to Deputy Higgs’s
villa, Highbury, or country dances at honest Mr. Lutestring’s
house at Hackney. Even the Sunday practice w^as changed ;
and, 0 abomination of abominations I Mr. Van den Bosch
left Bethesda Chapel in Bunhill Row, and actually took
a pew in Queen Square Church I
Queen Square Church, and Mr. George Warrington lived
hard by- in Southampton Row ! ’Twas easy to see at
whom Miss Lyddy was setting her cap, and Mr. Draper,
who had been full of her and her grandfather’s praises
THE VIRGINIANS
72 B
brfore, now took occasion to w‘arn Mr. George, and gave
him very different reports regarding Mr. Van den Bosch
to those which had first been current. Mr. Van d. B.,
for all he bragged so of his Dutch parentage, came from
Albany, and was nobody’s son at all. He had made
his money by land speculation, or by privateering (which
was uncommonly like piracy), and by the Guinea trade.
His son had married — if marriage it could be called, which
was very doubtful — an assigned servant, and had been
cut off by his father, and h^ taken to bad courses, and
had died, luckily for himself, in his own bed.
‘ Mr. Draper has told you bad tales about me,’ said the
placid old gentleman to George. ‘ Very likely w^e are all
sinners, and some evil may be truly said of aU of us, with
a great deal more that is untrue. Did he tell you that
my son was unhappy with me ? I told you so too. Did
he bring you wick^ stories about my family ? He liked
it so weU that he wanted to marry my Lyddy to his brother.
Heaven bless her ! I have had a many offers for her.
And you are the young gentleman I should have chose
for her, and I like you none the worse because you prefer
somebody else ; though what you can see in your miss,
as compared to my Drody, begging your honour’s pardon,
I am at a loss to understand.’
‘There is no accounting for tastes, my good sir,’ said
Mr. George, with his most superb air.
‘ No, sir ; ’tis a wonder of nature, and daily happens.
When I kept store to Albany, there was one of your tip-top
g^try there that might have married my dear daughter
that was alive then, and with a pretty piece of money,
whereby — for her father and I had quarrelled — Miss
Lyddy would have been a pauper, you see ; and in place
of my beautiful Bella, my gentleman chooses a little homely
creature, no prettier than your miss, and without a dollar
to her fortune. The more fool he, saving your presence,
Mr. George.’
‘ Pray don’t save my presence, my good sir,’ says George,
laughing. ‘I suppose the gentleman’s w’ord was given
to the other lady, and he had seen her first, and hence
was indifferent to your charming daughter.’
‘ I suppose wh^ a young fellow gives his word to perform
a cursed piece of foUy, he always sticks to it, my dear sir,
begging your pardon. But Lord, Lord, what am I speaking
A LITTLE INNOCENT
T2U
of ? I am a-speaking of twenty year ago. I was well-to-do
then, but I may say Heaven has blessed my store, and I am
three times as well off now'. Ask my agents how' much
they will give for Joseph Van den Bosch’s bill at six months
on New York — or at sight may be — ^for forty thousand
pound ? I warrant they will discount the paper.’
‘ Happy he who has the bill, sir I ’ says George, with
a bow, not a little amused with the candour of the old
gentleman.
‘ Lord, Lord, how mercenary you young men are ! ’
cries the elder, simply. ‘Always thinking about money
nowadays 1 Happy he who has the girl, I should say —
the money ain’t the question, my dear sir, w'hen it goes
along with such a lovely young thing as that — though
I humbly say it, w’ho oughtn’t, and w’ho am her fond,
silly old grandfather. We w'ere talking about you, Lyddy,
darling — come, give me a kiss, my blessing. We were
talking about you, and Mr. George said he wouldn’t take
you with all the money your poor old grandfather can
give you.’
‘ Nay, sir,’ says George.
‘ Well, you are right to say nay, for I didn’t say all,
that’s the truth. My Blessing will have a deal more than
that trifle I spoke of, when it shall please Heaven to remove
me out of this world to a better — when poor old Gappy
is gone, Lyddy will be a rich little Lyddy, that she will.
But she don’t wish me to go yet, does she ? ’
‘ O you darling dear grandpapa ! ’ says Lyddy.
‘ Tins young gentleman won’t have you.’ (Lyddy looks
an arch ‘ Thanh you, sir,’ from her brown eyes.) ‘ But
at any rate he is honest, and that is more than we can say
of some folks in this wicked London. 0 Lord, Lord,
how mercenary they are ! Do you know that yonder,
in Monument Yard, they were all at my poor little Blessing
for her money ? There was Tom Lutestring ; there was
Mr. Draper, your precious lawyer ; there w^as actually
Mr. Tubbs, of Bethesda Chapel ; and they must all come
buzzing like flies round the honey-pot. That is why w'e
came out of the quarter, where my brother tradesmen live.’
‘ To avoid the flies, to be sure ! ’ says Miss Lydia, tossing
up her little head.
‘ Where my brother tradesmen live,’ continues the old
gentleman. ‘ Else wiio am I to think of consorting with
THE VIRGINIANS
7:;o
your grandees aud fine folk ? I don’t care for the fashions,
Mr. George ; I don’t care for plays and poetry, begging
your honour’s pardon ; I never went to a play in my life,
but to please this little minx.’
‘ Oh, sir, ’twas lovely ! and I cried so, didn’t I, grand-
papa ? ’ says the child.
^ At what, my dear ? ’
* At — at Mr. Warrington’s play, grandpapa.’
‘ Did you, my dear ? I dare say ; I dare say I It was
mail day : and my letters had come in : and my ship
the Lovely Lyddy had just come into Falmouth ; and
Captain Joyce reported how he had mercifully escaped
a French privateer ; and my head w^as so full of thanks
for that escape, which sav^ me a deal of money, Mr.
George — ^for the rate at which ships is underwrote this
war-time is so scandalous that I often prefer to venture
than to insure — that I confess I didn’t listen much to the
play, sir, and only went to please this little Lyddy.’
* And you did please me, dearest Gappy ! ’ cries the
young lady.
* Bless you 1 then it’s all I w^ant. What does a man
want more here below than to please his children, Mr.
Geoi^ t especially me, who knew what it was to be un-
happy when I was young, and to repent of having treated
this darling’s father too hard.’
‘ Oh, grandpapa ! ’ cries the child, with more caresses.
* Yes, I was too hard with him, dear ; and that’s why
I spoil my little Lydkin so ! ’
More ki^es ensue between Lyddy and Gappy. The
little creature flings the pretty polished arms round the
old man’s neck, presses the dark red lips on his withered
cheek, surrounds the venerable head with a halo of powder
beaten out of his wig by her caresses ; and eyes Mr. George
the while, as much as to say, There, sir ! should you not
like me to do as much for you ?
We confess ; — ^but do we confess all ? George certainly
told the story of his interview with Lyddy and Gappy,
and the old man’s news regarding his granddaughter’s
wealth ; but I don’t think he told everything ; else Theo
would scarce have been so much interested, or so entirely
amused and good-humoured with Lyddy w^hen next the
two young ladies met.
They met now pretty frequently, especially after the old
A LITTLE INNOCENT
TM
American gentleman took up his residence in Bloomsbury.
Mr. Van den Bosch was in the City for the most part of
the day, attending to his affairs, and appearing at his
place upon ’Change. During his absence Lyddy had the
command of the house, and received her guests'there like
a lady, or rode abroad in a fine coach, which she ordered
her grandpapa to keep for her, and into which he could
very seldom be induced to set his foot. Before long Miss
Lyddy was as easy in the coach as if she had ridden in one
all her life. She ordered the domestics here and there ;
she drove to the mercer’s and the jeweller’s, and she called
upon her friends with the utmost stateliness, or rode abroad
with them to take the air. Theo and Hetty were both
greatly diverted with her : but would the elder have been
quite as well pleased had she know’n all Miss Lyddy’s doings?
Not that Theo w^as of a jealous disposition, — ^far otherwise ;
but there are cases w’hen a lady has a right to a little jealousy,
as I maintain, whatever my fair readers may say to the
contrary.
It was because she knew he w’as engaged, very likely,
that Miss Lyddy permitted herself to speak so frankly in
Mr. George’s praise. When they w^ere alone — and this
blessed chance occurred pretty often at Mr. Van den Bosch’s
house, for we have said he w^as constantly absent on one
errand or the other — ^it was wonderful how' artlessly the
little creature w’ould show her enthusiasm, asking him
all sorts of simple questions about himself, his genius, his
w ay of life at home and in London, his projects of marriage,
and so forth.
‘ I am glad you are going to be married, oh, so glad ! ’
she would say, heaving the most piteous sigh the while,
‘ for I can talk to you frankly, quite frankly, as a brother,
and not be afraid of that odious politeness about which
they were always scolding me at boarding-school. I may
speak to you frankly ; and if I like you, I may say so,
mayn’t I, Mr. George ? ’
‘Pray, say so,’ says George, wuth a bow and a smile.
‘ That is a kind of talk which most men delight to hear,
especially from such pretty lips as Miss Lydia’s.’
‘ What do you know about my lips ? ’ says the girl, with
a pout and an innocent look into his face.
‘ What, indeed ? ’ asks George. ‘ Perhaps I should
like to know’ a great deal more.’
732 THE VIRGINIANS
‘ They don’t tell nothin’ but truth, anyhow ! ’ says the
girl ; ‘ that’s why some people don’t like them I If I have
anything on my mind, it must come out. I am a country-
girl, I am — with my heart in my mouth — all honesty
and simplicity ; not like your English girls, who have
learned I don’t know what at their boardSng-schooIs, and
from the men afterwards.’
* Our girls are monstrous little hypocrites, indeed ! ’
cries George.
‘ You are thinking of Miss Lamberts ? and I might have
thought of them ; but I declare I did not then. They have
been at boarding-school ; they have been in the world
a great deal — so much the greater pity for them, for be
^^in they learned no go^ there. And now I have
said so, of course you will go and teU Miss Theo, won’t
you, sir ? ’
* That she has learned no good in the world ? She has
scarce spoken to men at ail, except her father, her brother,
and me. Which of us w^ould teach her any wTong, think
you ? ’
‘ Oh, not you I Though I can understand its being very
dangerous to be with you ! ’ says the girl, with a sigh.
* Indeed there is no danger, and I don’t bite ! ’ says
George, laughing.
‘ I didn’t say bite,’ says the girl, softly. ‘ There’s other
things dangerous besides biting, I should think. Aren’t
you very witty ? Yes, and sarcastic, and clever, and
always laughing at people ? Haven’t you a coaxing
tongue ? H you was to look at me in that kind of way,
I don’t know what would come to me. Was your brother
like you, as I was to have married ? Was he as clever and
witty as you ? I have heard he was like you : but he
hadn’t your coaxing tongue. Heigho ! ’Tis well you are
engaged, Master George, that is all. Do you think if you
had seen me first, you would have liked Miss Theo best ? ’
^They say marriages are made in Heaven, my dear,
and let us trust that mine has been arranged there,’ says
George.
* I suppose there was no such thing never known, as a man
having two sweethearts ? ’ asks the artless little maiden.
* Guess it’s a pity. O me I What nonsense I’m a-talking ;
there now ! I am like the little girl w^ho cried for the
moon ; and I can’t have it. ’Tis too high for me — too
A LITTLE INNOCENT
high and splendid and shining : can’t reach up to it nohow.
Well, what a foolish, wayward, little spoilt thing I am
now I But one thing you promise — on your word and
your honour, now, Mr. George ? ’
" And what is that ? ’
* That you won’t tell Miss Theo, else she’ll hate me.’
‘ Why should she hate you ? ’
‘ Because I hate her, and wish she w^as dead ! ’ breaks
out the young lady. And the eyes that were looking so
gentle and lachrymose but now, flame with sudden uTath,
and her cheeks flush up. ‘ Bor shame ! ’ she adds, after
a pause. ‘ I’m a little fool to speak ! But whatever is in
my heart must come out. I am a girl of the woods, I am.
I was bred where the sun is hotter than in this foggy climate.
And I am not like your cold English girls ; who, before they
speak, or think, or feel, must wait for mamma to give
leave. There, there ! I may be a little fool for saying
what I have. I know you’ll go and tell Miss Lambert.
Well, do ! ’
But, as we have said, Geoige didn’t tell Miss Lambert.
Even from the beloved person there must be some things
kept secret : even to himself, perhaps, he did not quite
acknowledge what was the meaning of the little girl’s
confession ; or, if he acknowledged it, did not act on it ;
except in so far as this, perhaps, that my gentleman, in
Miss Lydia’s presence, was particularly courteous and
tender ; and in her absence thought of her very kindly,
and always with a certain pleasure. It were hard, indeed,
if a man might not repay by a little kindness and gratitude
the artless affection of such a warm young heart.
What was that story meanwhile which came round to
our friends, of young Mr. Lutestring and young Mr. Drab-
shaw the Quaker having a boxing-match at a tavern in
the City, and all about this young lady ? They fell out over
their cups, and fought probably. Why did Mr. Ihraper,
who had praised her so at first, tell such stories now against
her grandfather ? ' I suspect,’ says Madame de Bernstein,
‘ that he wants the girl for some client or relation of his
own ; and that he tells these tales in order to frighten
all suitors from her. When she and her grandfather came
to me, she behaved perfectly well ; and I confess, sir,
I thought it was a great pity that you should prefer yonder
red-cheeked countrified little chit, without a hal^enny.
THE VIRGINIANS
734
to this pretty, wild, artless girl, with such a fortune as I
hear she has/
‘ Oh, she been with you, has she, aunt ? ’ asks George
of his relative.
‘Of course she been with me,’ the other replies,
curtly. ‘ Unless your brother has been so silly as to fall
in love with that other little Lambert girl ’
‘ Indeed, ma’am. I think I can say he has not,’ George
remarks,
‘ Why, then, when he comes back with Mr. Wolfe, should
he not take a fancy to this little person, as his mamma
wishes — only, to do us justice, we Esmonds care very little
for w’hat our mammas wish — and marry her, and set up
beside you in Virginia ? She is to have a great fortune,
w’hich you won’t touch. Pray, w^hy should it go out of the
f aanily ? ’
George now learned that Mr. Van den Bosch and his
granddaughter had been often at Madame de Bernstein’s
house. Taking his favourite walk with his favourite
companion to Kensington Gardens, he saw* Mr. Van den
Bosch’s chariot turning into Kensington Square. The
Americans w^ere going to visit Lady Castlew’ood then ?
He found, on some little inquiry, that they had been more
than once with her ladyship. It was, perhaps, strange
that they should have said nothing of their visits to George ;
but, being little curious of other people’s affairs, and having
no intrigues or mysteries of his own, George was quite
slow to imagine them in other people. What mattered to
him how often Kensington entertained Bloomsbury, or
Bloomsbury made its bow at Kensington ?
A number of things were happening at both places, of
w'hich our Virginian had not the slightest idea. Indeed,
do not things happen under our eyes, and w’e not see
them ? Are not comedies and tragedies daily performed
before us of which we understand neither the fun nor
the pathos ? Very likely George goes home thinking
to himself, ‘ I have made an impression on the heart of
this young creature. She has almost confessed as much.
Poor artless little maiden ! I wonder what there is in
me that she should like me ? ’ Can he be angry with her
for this unlucky preference ? Was ever a man angry at
such a reason ? He w^ould not have been so w^ell pleased,
perhaj®, had he known all ; and that he was only one of the
A LITTLE INXOC'EXT
i
performers in the comedy, not the principal character by
any means ; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the Traged\%
the part of Hamlet by a gentleman unknown. How often
are our little vanities shocked in this way, and subjected
to wholesome humiliation I Have you not fancied that
Lucinda’s eyes beamed on you with a special tenderness,
and presently become aware that she ogles your neighbour
with the very same killing glances ? Have you not ex-
changed exquisite whispers "with Lalage at the dinner-
table (sweet murmurs heard through the hum of the guests,
and clatter of the banquet !) and then overheard her whis-
pering the very same delicious phrases to old Surdus in
the drawing-room ? The sun shines for everybody ;
the flowers smell sweet for all noses ; and the nightingale
and Lalage warble for all ears — ^not your long ones only,
good brother !
CHAPTER LXX
IN WHICH CUPin PLAYS A CJONSIDBEABLE PART
E must now, however, and before
w'e proceed with the history of
Miss Lydia and her doings, per-
form the duty of explaining that
sentence in Mr. Warrington’s
letter to his brother which refers
to Lady Maria Esmond, and
which, to some simple readers,
may be still mysterious. For
how’,indeed, could well-regulated
persons divine such a secret ?
How could innocent and respect-
able young people suppose that
a woman of noble birth, of
ancient family, of mature experi-
ence, — a woman whom we have
seen exceedingly in love only a
score of months ago, — should so far forget herself as (Oh,
my very finger-tips blush as I wTite the sentence !), — as
not only to fall in love with a person of low origin, and
very many years her junior, but actually to marry him in
THE VIRGINIANS
73f»
the face of the world ? That is, not exactly in the face,
but behind the back of the w’orld, so to speak ; for Paraon
^mpson privily tied the indissoluble knot for the pair at
his chapel in May Pair.
Now stop before you condemn her utterly. Because
Lady Maria had had, and overcome, a foolish partiality
for her young cousin, was that any reason why she should
never fall in love with anybody else ? Are men to have
the sole privilege of change, and are women to be rebuked
for availing themselves now and again of their little chance
of consolation ? No invectives can be more rude, gross,
and unphilosophical than, for instance, Hamlet’s to his
mother about her second marriage. The truth, very likely,
is, that that tender, parasitic creature wanted a something
to cling to, and, Hamlet senior out of the way, twined
herself round Claudius. Nay, we have known females
so bent on attaching themselves, that they can twine
round two gentlemen at once. Why, forsooth, shall there
not be marriage-tables after funeral baked-meats ? If
you said grace for your feast yesterday, is that any reason
why you shall not be hungry to-day ? Your natural fine
appetite and relish for this evening’s feast, shows that to-
morrow evening at eight o’clock you will most probably
be in want of your dinner. I, for my part, when Plirtilla
or Jiltissa were partial to me (the kind reader will please
to fancy that I am alluding here to persons of the most
ravishing beauty and lofty rank), always used to bear in
mind that a time would come when they would be fond
of somebody else. We are served & la Bussey and gobbled
up a dish at a time, like the folks in Polyphemus’s cave.
’Tis hodie mihi, eras tiM : there are some Anthropophagi
who devour dozens of us, — ^the old, the young, the tender,
the tough, the plump, the lean, the ugly, the beautiful;
there’s no ^cape, and one after another, as our fate is,
we disappear down their omnivorous maws. Look at
Lady Ogr^ham ! We all remember, last year, how she
served poor Tom Kydd : seized upon him, devoured him,
picked his bones, and flung them away. Now it is Ned
Suckling she has got into her den. He lies under her
great eyes, quivering and fascinated. Look at the poor
Ettle trepid creature, panting and helpless under the great
ey^ ! She trails towards him nearer and nearer ; he draws
to h^, closer and closer. Presently, there will be one or
CUPID PLAYS A (XINSIDERABLE PART
737
two feeble squeaks for pity, and — hobblegobble — he will
disappear ! Ah me ! it is pity, too. I knew% for instance,
that Maria Esmond had lost her heart ever so many times
before Harry Warrington found it ; but I liked to fancy
that he was going to keep it ; that, bewailing mischance
and times out of joint, she would yet have preserved her
love, and fondled it in decorous celibacy. If, in some
paroxysm of senile folly, I should fall in love to-morrow%
I shall still try and think I have acquired the fee-simple
of my charmer’s heart ; — not that I am only a tenant, on
a short lease, of an old battered furnished-apartment, where
the dingy old wine-glasses have been clouded by scores of
pairs of lips, and the tumbled old sofas are muddy with
the last lodger’s boots. Dear, dear nymph ! Being beloved
and beauthul ! Suppose I had a little passing passion
for Glycera (and her complexion really w^as as pure as
splendent Parian marble) ; suppose you had a fancy for
Telephus, and his low collars and absurd neck ; — ^those
follies are all over now, aren’t they ? We love each other
for good, now, don’t we ? Yes, for ever ; and Glycera
may go to Bath, and Telephus take his cervicem roseam to
Jack Ketch, rCest-ce pas ?
No. We never think of changing, my dear. However
winds blow, or time flies, or spoons stir, our potage, which
is now so piping hot, will never get cold. Passing fancies
we may have allowed ourselves in former days ; and really
your infatuation for Telephus (don’t frown so, my darling
creature ! and make the WTinkles in your forehead worse) —
I say, really it was the talk of the whole town ; and as
for Glycera, she behaved confoundedly ill to me. Well,
well, now that we understand each other, it is for ever that
our hearts are united, and we can look at Sir CressweU
Cresswell, and snap our fingers at his wig. But this Maria
of the last century was a woman of an ill-regulated mind.
You, my love, who know the world, know that in the course
of this lady’s career a great deal must have passed that
w^ould not bear the light, or edify in the telling. You
know (not, my dear creature, that I mean you have any
experience ; but you have heard people say — ^you have
heard your mother say) that an old flirt, w^hen she has
done playing the fool with one passion, will play the fool
with another ; that flirting is like drinking ; and the
brandy being drunk up, you — no, not you — Glycera — ^the
VIROrXIANX B b
738
THE VIRGINIANS
brandy being dnink up, Glycera, who has taken to drinking,
will fall upon the gin. if Maria Esmond has found
a succ^sor for Harry Warrington, and set up a new sultan
in the precious empire of her heart, what, after all, could
you expect from her ? That territory was like the Low
Countries, accustomed to being conquered, and for ever
open to invasion.
And Maria’s present enslaver was no other than Mr.
Geoghegan or Hagan, the young actor who had performed
in George’s Tragedy. His tones were so thrilling, his eye
so bright, his mien so noble, he looked so beautiful in his
gilt leather armour and large buckled periwig, giving
utterance to the poet’s glowing verses, that the lady’s
heart was 3rielded up to him, even as Ariadne’s to Bacchus
when her affair with Theseus was over. The young Irish-
man was not a little touched and elated by the high-bom
damsel’s partiality for him. He might have preferred
a Lady Maria Hagan more tender in years, but one more
tender in disposition it were difficult to discover. She clung
to him closely, indeed. She retired to his humble lodgings
in Westminster with him, when it became necessary &>
disclose their marriage, and when her furious relatives dis-
owned her.
General Lambert brought the news home from his office
in Whitehall one day, and made merry over it with his
family. In those homely times a joke was none the worse
for b^ng a little broad ; and a fee lady would laugh at
a jolly page of Fielding, and weep over a letter of Clarissa,
which would make your present ladyship’s eyes start out
of your head with horror. He uttered all sorts of wag-
geries, did the merry general, upon the subject of this
marriage ; upon George’s share in bringing it about ; upon
Harry’s jealousy when he should hear of it. He vowed
it was cruel that Cousin Hagan had not selected George
as groomsman ; that the first child should be called Carpezan
or Sybilla, after the Tragedy, and so forth. They would
not quite be able to keep a coach, but they might get a
chariot and pasteboard dragons from Mr. foch’s theatre.
The baby might be christened in Macbeth’s cauldron :
and Harry and harlequin ought certainly to be godfathers.
* Why shouldn’t she marry him if she likes him ? ’ asked
little Hetty. ‘ Why should he not love her because she is
a little old t Mamma is a little old, and you love her none
CUPID PLAYS A CONSIDEBABLE PART 739
the worse. When you married my mamma, sir, I have
heard you say you were very poor ; and yet you were
very happy, and nobody laughed at you ! " Thus this
impudent Mttle person spoke by reason of her tender age,
not being aware of liady Maria Esmond’s previous follies.
So her family has deserted her ? George described
what wrath they were in ; how Lady Castlewood had gone
into mourning ; how Mr. Will swore he would have the
rascal’s ears ; how furious Madame de Bernstein was, the
most angry of all. ^ It is an insult to the family,’ says
haughty little Miss Hett ; ‘ and I fancy how’ ladies of that
rank must be indignant at their relative’s marriage with
a person of Mr. Hagan’s condition ; but to desert her is
a very different matter.’
‘ Indeed, my dear child,’ cries mamma, ‘ you are talking
of what you don’t understand. After my Lady Maria’s
conduct, no respectable person can go to see her.’
‘ What conduct, mamma ? ’
‘ Never mind,’ cri^ mamma. ‘ Little girls can’t be
expected to know, and ought not to be too curious to
inquire,what Lady Maria’s conduct has been ! SuflOice it,
miss, that I am shocked her ladyship should ever have been
here ; and I say again, no honest person should associate
with her 1 ’
‘ Then, Aunt Lambert, I must be whipped and sent to
bed,’ says George, with mock gravity. 'I own to you
(though I did not confess sooner, seeing that the affair
was not mine) that I have been to see my cousin the player,
and her ladyship his wife. I found them in very dirty
lodgings in Westminster, where the WTetch has the shab-
biness to keep not only his wife, but his old mother, and
a little brother, whom he puts to school. I found Mr. Hagan,
and came away with a liking, and almost a respect for
him, although I own he has made a very improvident
marriage. But how improvident some folks are about
marriage, aren’t they, Theo ? ’
^ Improvident, if they marry such spendthrifts as you,’
says the general. ‘ Master George found his relations, and
I’ll be bound to say he left his purse behind him.’
‘ No, not the purse, sir,’ says George, smiling very ten-
derly. ‘ Theo made that. But I am bound to own it
came empty away. Mr. Rich is in great dudgeon. He
says he hardly dares have Hagan on his stage, and is
740
THE VTBGIXIAXS
afraid of a riot, such as Mr. Garrick had about the foreign
dancers. This is to be a fine gentlemen’s riot. The
Macaronis are furious, and vow they will pelt Mr. Hagan,
and have him cudgelled afterwards. My cousin Will, at
Arthur’s, has taken his oath he will have the actor’s ears.
Meanwhile, as the poor man does not play, they have cut
ofi his salary ; and without his salary, this luckless pair
of lovers have no means to buy bread and che^e.’
‘ And you took it to them, sir ? It w^as like you, George ! ’
says Theo, w’orshipping him with her eyes.
‘ It w^as your purse took it, dear Theo 1 ’ replies George.
^ Mamma, I hope you will go and see them to-morrow ! ’
prays Theo.
‘ If she doesn’t, I shall get a divorce, my dear 1 ’ cries
papa. ‘Come and kiss me, you little wench — ^that is,
avec la bonne permission de momiem mon beau-fUsJ
‘ Monsieur mon beau fiddlestick, papa ! ’ says Miss
Lambert, and I have no doubt complies with the paternal
orders. And this w^as the first time George Esmond
Warrington, Esquire, was ever called a fiddlestick.
Any man, even in our time, who makes an imprudent
mamage, knows how he has to run the gauntlet of the
family, and undergo the abuse, the scorn, the wrath, the
pity of his relations. If your respectable family cry out
because you marry the curate’s daughter, one in ten, let
us say, of his charming children ; or because you engage
yourself to the young barrister whose only present pecuniary
resources come from the court which he reports, and who
will have to pay his Oxford bills out of your slender little
fortune ; — ^if your friends cry out for making such engage-
ments as these, fancy the feelings of Lady Maria Hagan’s
friends, and even those of Mr. Hagan’s, on the announce-
ment of this marriage.
There is old Mrs. Hagan, in the first instance. Her son
has kept her dutifully and in tolerable comfort, ever since
he left Trinity College at his father’s death, and appeared
as Romeo at Crow Street Theatre. His salary has sufficed
of late years to keep the brother at school, to help the
sister w^ho has gone out as companion, and to provide &e,
clothing, tea, dinner, and comfort for the old clergyman’s
widow. And now, forsooth, a fine lady with all sorts of
extravagant habits, must come and take possession of
the humble home, and share the scanty loaf and mutton !
CUPID PLAYS A CONSIDERABLE PART
741
Were Hagan not a high-spirited fellow, and the old mother
very much afraid of him, I doubt whether my lady’s life
at the Westminster lodgings would be very comfortable.
It W€LS very selfish perhaps to take a place at that small
table, and in poor Hagan’s narrow bed. But Love in some
passionate and romantic dispositions never regards con-
sequences, or measures accommodation. Who has not
experienced that frame of mind ; what thrifty vife has not
seen and lamented her husband in that condition ; when
vith rather a heightened colour and a deuce-may-care
smile on his face, he comes home and announces that he has
asked twenty people to dinner next Saturday ? He doesn’t
know whom exactly ; and he does know the dining-room
vill only hold sixteen. Never mind ! Two of the prettiest
girls can sit upon young gentlemen’s knees : others won’t
come : there’s sure to be plenty ! In the intoxication of
love people venture upon this dangerous sort of house-
keeping ; they don’t calculate the resources of their dining-
table, or those inevitable butchers’ and fishmongers’ bills
which will be brought to the ghastly housekeeper at the
beginning of the month.
Yes. It was rather selfish of my Lady Maria to seat
herself at Hagan’s table and take the cream off the milk,
and the vings of the cliickens, and the best half of every-
thing where there was only enough before ; and no wonder
the poor old mamma-in-law was disposed to grumble.
But what w^as her outcry compared to the clamour at
Kensington among Lady Maria’s noble family ? Think
of the talk and scandal all over the town ! Think of the
titters and whispers of the ladies in attendance at the
princess’s court, w’here Lady Fanny had a place ; of the
jokes of Mr. Will’s brother-officers at the usher’s table ;
of the waggeries in the daily prints and magazines ; of
the comments of outraged prudes ; of the laughter of
the clubs and the sneers of the ungodly ! At the receipt of
the news Madame Bernstein had fits and ran off to the
solitude of her dear rocks at Tunbridge Wells, wffiere she
did not see above forty people of a night at cards. My
lord refused to see his sister : and the countess in mourn-
ing, as we have said, waited upon one of her patronesses,
a gracious princess, who was pleased to condole vdth her
upon the disgrace and calamity which had befallen her
house. For one, two, three whole days the town was excited
742
THE VIRGINIANS
and amused bj the scandal ; then there came other news—
a victory in Germany ; doubtful accounts from America ;
a gener^ ofiScer coming home to take his trial ; an exquisite
new soprano singer from Italy; and the public forgot
Lady Maria in her garret, eating the hard-earned meal
of the actor’s family.
This is an extract from Mr. George Warrington’s letter
to his brother, in which he describes other personal matters,
as well as a visit he had paid to the newly-married pair :
My dearest little Theo, he writes, was eager to accompany
her mamma upon this errand of charity; but I thought Aunt
Lambert’s visit would be best under the circumstances, and without
the attendance of her little spinster aide de camp. Cousin Hagan
was out when we called ; we found her ladyship in a loose undress,
and with her hair in not the neatest papers, playing at cribhage
with a nei^bour from the second-floor, while good Mrs. Hagan
sat on the odier side of fhe fire with a gla^ of punch, and the Whole
Dviy of Man,
Maria, your Maria once, cried a little when she saw us ; and Aunt
Lambert, you may be sure, was ready with her sympathy. While
she bestowed it on Lady Maria, I paid the best compliments I could
invent to the old lady. When the conversation between Aunt L.
and the bride began to flag, I turned to the latter, and between us
we did our best to make a dreary interview pleasant. Our talk
was about you, about Wolfe, about war ; you must he engaged
face to face with the Frenchmen by this time, and God send my
dearest brother safe and victorious out of the battle ! Be sure we
follow your steps anxiously — we fancy you at Cape Breton. We
have plans of Quebec, and charts of the St. Lawrence. Shall I ever
forget youi face of joy that day when you saw me return safe and
sound from the little combat with the little Frenchman ? So will
my Harry, I know, return from his battle. I feel quite assured of
it ; elated somehow with the prospect of your certain success and
safety. And I have made ah here share my cheerfulness. We
talk of the campaign as over, and Captain Warrington’s promotion
as secure. Pray Heaven, all our hopes may be fulfilled one day ere
long.
How strange it is that you who are the mettlesome fellow (you
know you are) should escape quarrels hitherto, and I, who am
a peaceful youth, wishing no harm to anybody, should have battles
thrust upon me ! What do you think actually of my having had
another affair upon my wick^ hands, and with whom, think you ?
With no less a persemage than your old enemy, our kinsman
Mr. Win.
What or who set him to quarrel with me, I cannot think. Spencer
(who acted as second for me, for matters actually have gone this
length ; — don't be frightened; it is aU over, and nobody is a scratch
CUPID PLAYS A CONSIDERABLE PART m
the worse) thinks some one set Will on me, but who, I say ? His
conduct has been most singular ; his behaviour quite unbearable.
We have met pretty frequently lately at the house of good Mr. Van
den Bosch, whose pretty granddaughter was consigned to both of
us by our good mother. Oh, dear mother I did you know that
the little thmg was to be such a cauaa bdli, and to cause swords to
be drawn, and precious lives to be menaced ? But so it has been.
To show his own spirit, I suppose, or having some reasonable
doubt about mine, whenever Will and I have met at Mynheer’s
house — and he is for ever going there — he has shown such down-
right rudeness to me, that I have required more than ordinary
patience to keep my temper. He has contradicted me once, twice,
thrice, in the presence of the family, and out of sheer spite and rage,
as it appeared to me. Is he paying his addresses to Miss Lydia,
and her father’s ships, negroes, and forty thousand pounds ?
I should guess so. The old gentleman is for ever talking about his
money, and adores his granddaughter, and as she is a beautiful
little creature, numbers of folk here are ready to adore her too.
Was Will rascal enough to fancy that I would give up my Theo
for a million of guineas, and negroes, and Venus to boot ? Could
the thought of such baseness enter into the man’s mind ? I don’t
know that he has accused me of stealing Van den Bosch’s spoons and
tankards when we dine there, or of robbing on the highway. But
for ono reason or the other he has chosen to be jealous of me, and as
I have parried his impertinences with little sarcastic speeches
(though perfectly civil before company), perhaps I have once or
twice made him angry. Our little Miss Lydia has unwittingly
added fuel to the fire on more than one occasion, especially yesterday,
when there was talk about your worship.
‘ Ah ! ’ says the heedless Httle thing, as we sat over our dessert,
‘ ’tis lucky for you, Mr. Esmond, that Captain Harry is not here.’
‘ Why, miss ? ’ asks he, with one of his usual conversational
ornaments. He must have offended some fairy in his youth, who
has caused him to drop curses for ever out of his mouth, as she did
the girl to spit out toads and serpents. (I know some one from
whose gentle lips there only fall pure pearls and diamonds.) ‘ Why ?’
says Will, with a cannonade of oaths.
‘ Oh fie 1 ’ says she, putting up the prettiest little fingers to the
prettiest little rosy ears in the world. ‘ Oh fie, sir ! to use such
naughty words. ’Tis lucky the captain is not here, because he
might quarrel with you ; and Mr. George is so peaceable and quiet,
that he won’t. Have you heard from the captain, Mr. George ? ’
‘ From Cape Breton,’ says I. ‘ He is very well, thank you ;
that is ’ I couldn’t finish the sentence, for I was in such a rage,
that I scarce could contain myself.
‘ From the captain, as you call him, Miss Lyddy,’ says Will.
‘ He’ll distinguish himself as he did at Saint Cas I Ho, ho I ’
‘ So I apprehend he did, sir,’ says Will’s brother.
‘ Did he ? ’ says our dear cousin ; ‘ always thought he ran away ;
lU THE VIRGmANS
took to kis legs ; got a ducking, and ran away aa if a bailiff was after
him*’
* La ! ’ says miss, ‘ did the captain ever have a bailiff after him ? ’
‘ Efein’t he ! Ho, ho ! ’ laughs Mr. Will.
I suppose I must have looked very savage, for Spencer, who was
dining with us, trod on my foot under the table. ‘ Don’t laugh so
loud cousin,’ I saki, very gently ; ‘ you may wake good old Mr. Van
den Boech,’ The good old gentleman was asleep in his arm-chair,
to which he commonly retires for a nap after dinner.
' Oh, indeed ! cousin,’ says Will, and he turns and winks at
a fri^d of his. Captain Deuceace, whose own and whose wife's
reputation I daresay you heard of when you frequented the clubs,
and whom Will has introduced into this simple family as a man
of the hipest fashion. ‘Don’t be afraid, miss,’ says Mr. Will,
‘ nor my cousin needn’t be.’
‘ Oh, what a comfort I ’ cries Miss Lyddy. ‘ Keep quite quiet,
^ntl^me©, and don’t quarrel, and come up tome when I send to say
the t^ is ready.’ And with this she makes a sweet little curtsy
and dbappears.
‘ Hang it. Jack, pass the bottle, and don’t wake the old gentle-
man ! ’ continues Mr. Will. ‘ Won’t you help yourself, cousin ? ’
he continues ; being particularly facetious in Hie tone of that word
cousin.
‘ I am going to help myself,’ I smd, ‘ but I am not going to drink
the glass ; and I’ll tell you what I am going to do with it, if you will
be quite quiet, oonsin I ’ (Desperate kicks from Spencer all this
time.)
‘ And what the deuce do I care what you are going to do with
it ? ’ asks Will, looking rather white.
‘ I am going to fling it into your face, cousin,’ says I, very
rapidly performing that feat.
‘ By Jove, and no mistake ! ’ cries Mr. Deuceace ; and as he and
William roared out an oath together, good old Van den Bosch
woke up, and, taking the pocket-handkerchief off his face, asked
what was the matter.
I rmarked it was only a glass of wine gone the wrong way : and
the old man said, ‘ Well, well, there is more where that came from I
Let the butler bring you what you please, young gentlemen ! ’ and
be sank back in his great chair, and began to sleep again.
‘ From the back of Montagu House Gardens there is a beautiful
view of Hampstead at six o’clock in the morning ; and the statue
of the king on St. George’s Church is reckoned elegant, cousin ! ’
says I, resuming the conversation.
‘ D— ^e statue ! ’ begins Will : but I said, ‘ Don’t, cousin !
or you will wake up the old gentleman. Had we not best go upstairs
to Miss Lyddy’s tea-table ? ’
We arranged a little meeting for the next morning ; and a
coremer might have been sitting upon one or other, or both, of our
bodies this afternoon ; but, would you believe it ? just as our
CUPID PLAYS A CONSIDERABLE PART
T47
eng^ement was about to take place, we were interrupted by three
of Sir John Fielding’s men, and carried to Bow Street, and igno-
miniously bound over to keep the peace.
‘ Who gave the information ? Not I, or Spencer, I can vow.
Though I own I was pleased when the constables came running
to us, bludgeon in hand : for I had no wish to take Will’s blood,
or sacrifice my own to such a rascal. Now, sir, have you such
a battle as this to describe to me ? — a battle of powder and no
shot ? — a battle of swords as bloody as any on the stage ? 1 have
filled my paper, without finishing the story of Maria and her Hagan.
Y'ou must have it by the next sfip. You see, the quarrel with Will
took place yesterday, very soon after I had written the first sen-
tence or two of my letter. I had been dawdling till dinner time
(I looked at the paper last night, when I was grimly making certain
little accounts up, and wonder^ shall I ever finish this letter t),
and now the quarrel has been so much more interesting to me than
poor Molly’s love adventures, that behold my paper is full to the brim !
Wherever my dearest Harry reads it, I know that there will be
a heart full of love for
His loving brother,
G. E. W.
CHAPTER LXXI
■WHITE PAVOUBS
HE little quarrel between
George and his cousin caused
the former to discontinue his
visits to Bloomsbury in a
great measure ; for Mr. 'Will
w^as more than ever assiduous
in his attentions ; and, now
that both were bound over to
peace, so outrageous in liis
behaviour, that George found
the greatest difidculty in keep-
ing his hands from his cousin.
The artless little Lydia had
certainly a queer way of
receiving her friends. But six
weeks before madly jealous
of George’s preference for
another, she now took occasion repeatedly to comphment
Theo in her conversation. Miss Theo was such a quiet,
THE \TEGmANS
748
gentle creature, Lyddy was sure George was just the
husband for her. How fortunate that horrible quarrel
had been prevented ! The constables had come up just
in time ; and it was quite ridiculous to hear Mr. Esmond
cursing and swearing, and the rage he was in at being dis-
appointed of his duet ! ‘ But the arrival of the constables
saved your valuable life, dear Mr. George, and I am sure
Mass Theo ought to bless them for ever,’ says Lyddy, with
a soft smdle. ‘ You -won’t stop and meet Mr. Esmond at
dinner to-day i You don’t like being in his company ?
He can’t do you any harm ; and I am sure you will do
liim none.’ &nd speeches like these, addressed by a little
girl to a gentleman, and spoken by a strange inadvertency
in company, and w’hen other gentlemen and ladies were
present, were not likely to render Mr. Warrington very
eager for the society of the young American lady.
George’s meeting with Mr. Will was not known for
some <£ys in Bean Street, for he did not wish to disturb
those kind folks with his quarrel ; but when the ladies
w'ere made aw’are of it, you may be sure there was a great
flurry and to do. ‘ You were actually going to take a
fellow-creature’s life, and you came to see us, and said
not a word ! Oh, George, it was shocking ! ’ said Theo.
‘ My dear, he had insulted me and my brother,’ pleaded
George. ‘ Could I let him call us both cowards, and sit
by and say, Thank you ? ’
The general sat by and looked very grave.
^ You know you think, papa, it is a wicked and un-
christian practice ; and have often said you wished gentle-
men would have the courage to refuse I ’
^ To refuse ? Yes,’ says Mr. Lambert, still very glum.
^ It must require a prodigious strength of mind to refuse,’
says Jack Lambert, looMng as gloomy as his father;
‘ and I think if any man were to call me a coward, I should
be apt to forget my orders.’
‘ You see brother Jack is with me ! ’ cries George.
‘ I must not be against you, Mr. Warrington,’ says Jack
Lambert.
^ Mr. Warrington ! ’ cries George, turning very red.
'Would you, a clergyman, have George break the
Commandments, and co mmi t murder, John ? ’ asks Theo,
aghast.
' I am a soldier’s son, sister,’ says the young divine,
WHITE FAVOUES
749
dryly. ‘ Besides, Mr. Warrington has committed no murder
at all. We must soon be hearing from Canada, father.
The great question of the supremacy of the two races
must be tried there ere long!’ He turned his back on
George as he spoke, and the latter eyed him with wonder.
Hetty, looking rather pale at tins original remark of
brother Jack, is called out of the room by some artful
pretext of her sister. George started up and followed the
retreating girls to the door.
‘ Great powers, gentlemen ! ’ says he, coming back,
‘ I believe, on my honour, you are giving me the credit
of shirking this affair with Esmond 1 ’ The clergyman
and his father looked at one another.
‘ A man’s nearest and dearest are always the first to
insult him,’ says George, flashing out.
‘You mean to say, “Not guilty” ? God bless thee,
my boy 1 ’ cries the general. ‘ I told thee so, Jack.’ And
he rubbed his hand across his eyes, and blushed, and wrung
George’s hand with all his might.
‘ Not guilty of w^hat, in Heaven’s name ? ’ asks Mr.
Warrington.
‘ Nay,’ said the general, ‘ Mr. Jack, here, brought the
story. Let him tell it. I believe ’tis a lie, with all
my heart.’ And uttering this wicked expression, the
general fairly walked out of the room.
The Eev. J. Lambert looked uncommonly foolish.
‘ And what is tliis — ^this d d lie, sir, that somebody
has been telling of me ? ’ asked George, grinning at the
young clergyman.
‘ To question the courage of any man is always an
offence to him,’ says Mr. Lambert, ‘ and I rejoice that
yours has been belied.’
‘ Who told the falsehood, sir, which you repeated ? ’
bawis out Mr. Warrington. ‘ I insist on the man’s name ! ’
"You forget you are bound over to keep the peace,’
says Jack.
‘ Curse the peace, sir ! We can go and fight in Holland.
TeU me the man’s name, I say 1 ’
‘ Fair and softly, Mr. Warrington ! ’ cries the young
parson, ‘ my hearing is perfectly good. It was not a man
who told me the story which, I confess, I imparted to
my father.’
‘ ^Vliat ? ’ tasks George, the truth suddenly occurring.
750 THE VIRC4INIANS
‘Was it that artful, 'vi’ieked little vixen in Bloomsbury
Square ? *
‘ Vixen is not the word to apply to any young lady,
George Warrington ! ’ exclaims Lambert, ‘ much less to
the charming Miss Lydia. She artful — ^the most innocent
of Heaven’s creatures ! She mcked — that angel ! With
unfeigned delight that the quarrel should be over — with
devout gratitude to think that blood consanguineous should
not be shed — she spoke in terms of the highest praise of
you for declining this quarrel, and of the deepest sympathy
with you for taking the painful but only method of avert-
ing it.’
' What method ? ’ demands George, stamping his foot.
‘ Why, of laying an information, to be sure ! ’ says
Mr. Jack ; on wMch George burst forth into language
much too violent for us to repeat here, and highly un-
complimentary to Miss Lydia.
‘ Ik>n’t utter such words, sir I ’ cried the parson, who,
as it seemed, now took his turn to be angry. ‘ Do not
insult, in my hearing, the most charming, the most inno-
cent of her sex ! If she has been mistaken in her information
regarding you, and doubted your willingness to commit
what, after all, is a crime — for a crime homicide is, and
€i the mc^t awful description — ^you, sir, have no right to
blacken that angel’s character with foul words : and,
innocent yourself, should respect the most innocent as she
is the most lovely of women ! Oh, George, are you to be
mj brother ? ’
‘ I hope to have that honour,’ answered George, smiling.
He began to perceive the other’s drift.
‘ What, then, what — ^though ’tis too much bliss to be
hoped for by sinful man — what, if she should one day be
your sister ? Who could see her charms without being
subjugated by them ? I own that I am a slave. I own
that those Latin Sapphics in the September number of the
OeTiUeTnan^s Magazine, beginning Lydiae qnondam ceoinit
veniistae (with an English version by my friend Hickson
of Cbrpus) were mine. I have told my mother what hath
passed between us, and Mrs. Lambert also thinks that the
most lovely of her sex has deigned to look favourably on
me. I have composed a letter — she another. She pro-
to wait on Miss Lydia’s grandpapa this very day,
and to bring me the answ^er which shall make me the
WHITE FAVOURS
751
happiest or the most wretched of men ! It was in the
unrestrained intercourse of family conversation that I
chanced to impart to my father the sentiments which my
dear girl had uttered. Perhaps I spoke slightingly of your
courage, which I don’t doubt — by Heaven, I don’t doubt ;
it may be, she has erred, too, regarding you. It may be
that the fiend jealousy has been gnawing at my bosom
and — horrible suspicion ! — that I thought my sister’s
lover found too much favour with her I would have all my
own. Ah, dear George, who knows his faults ? I am as
one distracted vith passion. Confound it, sir I What
right have you to laugh at me ? I would have you to
know that risu inepto . .
‘ What, have you two boys made it up ? ’ cries the
general, entering at this moment, in the midst of a roar
of laughter from George.
‘ I was giving my opinion to Mr. Warrington upon
laughter, and upon his laughter in particular,’ says Jack
Lambert, in a fume.
‘ George is bound over to keep the peace, Jack I Thou
canst not fight him for two years ; and between now and
then, let us trust you will have made up your quarrel.
Here is dinner, boys ! We w’ill drink absent friends, and
an end to the war, and no fighting out of the profession ! ’
George pleaded an engagement, as a reason for running
away early from his dinner ; and Jack must have speedily
followed him, for when the former, after transacting some
brief business at his own lodgings, came to Mr. Van den
Bosch’s door, in Bloomsbury Square, he found the young
parson already in parley with a servant there. ‘ His master
and mistress had left town yesterday,’ the servant said.
‘ Poor Jack ! And you had the decisive letter in your
pocket ? ’ George asked of his future brother-in-law.
‘ Well, yes,’ — Jack owned he had the document — ‘ and
my mother has ordered a chair, and was coming to wait
on Miss Lyddy,’ he whispered piteously, as the young men
lingered on the steps.
George had a note, too, in his pocket for the young lady,
which he had not cared to mention to Jack. In truth,
his business at home had been to w^rite a smart note to
Miss Lyddy, wdth a message for the gentleman who had
brought her that funny story of his giving information
regarding tlie duel ! The family being absent, George, too,
752
THE VIRGINL4NS
did not choose to leave his note. ‘ If cousin Will has been
the slander-bearer, I will go and make him recant/ thought
Gmrge. " Will the family soon be back ? ’ he blandly
asked.
* They are gone to visit the quality,’ the servant replied.
* Here is the address on this paper ; ’ and George read,
in Miss Lydia’s hand, ‘The box from Madam Hocquet’s
to be sent by the Famham Fl3idng Coach ; address^ to
Miss Van den Bosch, at the Right Honourable the Earl
of Castlewood’s, Castlew’ood, Hants.’
‘ Where ? ’ cried poor Jack, aghast.
‘ His lordship and their ladyships have been here often,’
the servant said, with much importance. ‘ The families
is quite intimate.’
This was very strange ; for, in the course of their con-
versation, Lyddy had owned but to one single visit from
Lady Castlewood.
‘ And they must be a going to stay there some time,
for miss have took a power of boxes and gowns with her ! ’
the man added. And the young men walked away, each
crumpling his letter in his pocket.
‘ What was that remsurk you made ? ’ asks George of
Jack, at some exclamation of the latter. ‘ I think you
said ’
‘ Distraction ! I am beside myself, George ! I — scarce
know what I am saying,’ groans the clergyman. ‘ She is
* gone to Hampshire, and Mr. Esmond is gone with her ! ’
‘ Othello could not have spoken better I and she has
a pretty scoundrel in her company ! ’ says Mr. George.
‘ ^ ! Here is your mother’s chair ! ’ Indeed, at this
mom^t poor Aunt Lambert came swinging down Great
Russell Street, preceded by her footman. ‘ ’Tis no use
going farther, Aunt Lambert ! ’ cries George. ‘ Our little
bird has flown.’
‘ What little bird ? ’
‘ The bird Jack washed to pair with : — ^the Lyddy bird,
aunt. Why, Jack, I protest you are swearing again ! Tliis
morning ’twas the Sixth Commandment you w^anted to
break ; and now’ ’
‘ Confound it ! leave me alone, Mr. Warrington, do you
hear ? ’ grow’ls Jack, looking very savage ; and away he
strides far out of the reach of liis mother’s bearers.
‘ What is the matter, George ? ’ asks the lady.
WHITE FAVOUBS
753
George, who has not been very well pleased with brother
Jack’s behaviour aU day, says : ‘ Brother Jack has not
a jfine temper, Aunt Lambert. He informs you all that
I am a coward, and remonstrates with me for being angry.
He finds his mistress gone to the country, and he bawls,
and stamps, and swears. Oh, fie ! Oh, Aunt Lambert,
beware of jealousy! Did the quarrel ever make you
jealous ? ’
‘You will make me very angry if you speak to me in
this w^ay,’ says poor Aunt Lambert, from her chair.
‘I am respectfully dumb. I make my bow. I with-
draw,’ says George, with a low bow, and turns tow’ards
Holbom, His soul was wToth within him. He w^as bent
on quarrelling with somebody. Had he met Cousin Will
that night, it had gone ill with his sureties.
He sought Will at all his haunts, at Arthur’s, at his
own house. There Lady Castlewood’s servants informed
him that they believed Mr. Esmond had gone to join the
family in Hants. He wrote a letter to his cousin :
‘My dear, kind cousin William,’ he said, ‘you know
I am bound over, and would not quarrel with any one,
much less with a dear, truth-teUing, affectionate kinsman,
whom my brother insulted by caning. But if you can
find any one who says that I prevented a meeting the
other day by giving information, will you tell your informant
that I think it is not I but somebody else is the coward ?
And I write to Mr. Van den Bosch by the same post, to
inform him and Miss Lyddy that I &id some rascal has
been telling them lies to my discredit, and to beg them
have a care of such persons.’ And, these neat letters being
dispatched, Mr. Warrington dressed himself, showed him-
self at the play, and took supper cheerfully at the ‘ Bedford’.
In a few days George found a letter on his breakfast
table franked ‘ Castlewood ’, and, indeed, vTitten by that
nobleman.
Deae Cousin (my lord wrote), there has been so much annoy-
ance in our family of late, that I am sure ’tis time our quarrels
should cease. Two days since my brother William brought me a very
angry letter, signed G. Warrington, and at the same time, to my
great grief and pain, acquainted me with a quarrel that had taken
place between you, in which, to say the least, your conduct was
violent. ’Tis an ill use to put good wine to — that to which you
applied good IMr. Van den Bosch’s. Sure, before an old man,
young ones should be more respectful. I do not deny that William’s
754
THE TIROmAXS
language and behavioar are often irritating. I know he has often
tried my temper, and that within the 24 hours.
Ah ! Why should we not all live happily together ? You know,
cousin, I have ever professed a sincere regard for you — tW I am
a sincere admirer of the admirable young lady to whom you are
engaged, and to whom I offer my most cordial compliments and
remembrances. I would live in harmony with ail my family where
'tis possible — the more because I hope to introduce to it a Countess
of C^tlewood.
At my mature age, ’tis not uncommon for a man to choose a
young wife. My Lydia (you will divine that I am happy in being
able to call mine the elegant 3Iiss Van den Bosch) wiU naturally
survive me. After sootmng my declining years, I shall not be
jealous if at their close she should select some happy man to succeed
me ; though I shall envy him the po^ession of so much perfection
and beauty. Though of a noble Dutch family, her rank, the ^ girl
declares, is not equal to mine, which she confuses that she is pleased
to ^are. I, on the other hand, shall not be sorry to see descendants
to my house, and to have it, through my Lady Castlewood’s means,
restored to something of the splendour which it knew before two
or three improvident predecessors impaired it. My Lydia, who is
by my side, sends you and the charming Lambert family her warmest
remembrances.
The marriage will take place vei^ speedily here. May I hope to
see you at church ? My brotimr will not be present to quarrel with
you. When I and dear Lydia announced the match to him yes-
terday, he took the intelligence in bad part, uttered language that
I know he will one day regret, and is at present on a visit to some
neighbours. The Dowager Lady Castlewood retains the house
at Kensington ; we having our own establishment, where you will
ever be w'elcomed, dear cousin, by your affectionate humble servant,
Castlewood.
From the London Magazine of November, 1759 :
Saturday, October 13th, married, at his seat, Castlewood, Hants,
the Right Honourable Eugene Earl of Castlewood to the beautiful
Miss Van den Bosch, of Virginia. 70,000^.
ME. WILL IS PRESENTED TO HTS SISTER-IN-LAW
767
CHAPTER LXXII
(from the wabetnoton ms.) in which my lady is on the top
OP THE LADDER
)iaNG across the fire, towards
her accustomed chair, who has
been the beloved partner of my
hearth during the last half of
my life, I often ask (for middle-
aged gentlemen have the privi-
lege of repeating their jokes,
their questions, their stories)
w’hether two young people ever
were more foolish and impru-
dent than we were, when w^e
married, as we did, in the year
of the old king’s death ? My
son, who has taken some pro-
digious leaps in the heat of his
fox-hunting, says he surveys the
gaps and rivers which he crossed
so safely over, with terror after-
wards, and astonishment at his own foolhardiness in
making such desperate ventures : and yet there is no more
eager sportsman in the two counties than Miles. He loves
his amusement so much that he cares for no other. He
has broken his collar-bone, and had a hundred tumbles
(to his mother’s terror) ; but so has his father (thinking,
perhaps, of a copy of verse, or his speech at (Quarter Ses-
sions) been throwm over his old mare’s head, who has
slipped on a stone, as they were both dreaming along
a park road at four miles an hour ; and Miles’s reckless
sport has been the delight of his life, as my marriage has
been the blessing of mine ; and I never think of it but
to thank Heaven. Mind, I don’t set up my worship as
an example : I don’t say to all young folks, " Go and marry
upon twopence a year ’ ; or people would look very black
at me at our vestry meetings ; but my wife is known to
be a desperate matchmaker ; and when Hodge and Susan
appear in my justice-room with a talk of allowance, we
758
THE VIRGI^IIANS
urge them to spend their half-crown a \\eek at home, add
a little contribution of our own, and send for the vicar.
Now, w^hen I ask a question of my dear oracle, I know
what the answer %vill be ; and hence, no doubt, the reason
why I so often consult her. I have but to wear a particular
expression of face, and my Diana takes her reflection from
it. Suppose I say, ‘My dear, don’t you think the moon
was made of cream-cheese to-night ? ’ She will say, ‘ Well,
papa, it did look very like cream-cheese, indeed — ^there’s
nobody like you for droll similes.’ Or, suppose I say,
‘My love, Air. Pitt’s speech w’as very jflne, but I don’t
think he is equal to wkat I remember his father.’ ‘ Nobody
w^as equal to my Lord Chatham,’ says my wife. And then
one of the girls cries, ‘ Why, I have often heard our papa
say, Lord Chatham was a charlatan ! ’ On which mamma
says, ‘ How Hke she is to her aunt Hetty 1 ’
As for Miles, Tros Tyriusm is all one to him. He only
reads the sporting announcements in the Norwich paper.
So long as there is good scent, he does not care about
the state of the country, I believe the rascal has never
read my poems, much more my tragedies (for I mentioned
PocaAonias to him the other day, and the dunce thought
she was a river in Virginia) ; and with respect to my
Latin verses, how can he understand them, when I know
he can’t construe Corderius ? Why, this note-book lies
publicly on the little table at my corner of the fireside,
and any one may read in it -who will take the trouble of
lifting my spectacles off the cover : but Miles never hath.
I insert in the loose pages caricatures of Miles ; jokes
against him : but he never knows nor heeds them. Only
once, in place of a neat drawing of mine, in China-ink,
representing Miles asleep after dinner, and which my friend
Bunbury would not disovm, I found a rude picture of
myself going over my mare Sultana’s head, and entitled
‘ The Squire on Horseback, or Fish out of Water And
the feUow began to roar with laughter, and all the girls
to titter, when I came upon the page ! My wife said she
never was in such a fright as wken I went to my book ;
but I can bear a joke against myself, and have heard
many, though (strange to say for one who has lived among
some of the chief wits of the age) I never heard a good one
in my life. Never mind, Miles, though thou art not a wit,
I love thee none the worse (there never was any love lost
:«a5fe,ir=3S^‘
aiASTEB MTT.T5S WAEEUTGTON
MY LADY IS ON THE TOP OF THE LADDER 761
between two w’its in a family) ; though thou hast no great
beauty, thy mother thinks thee as handsome as Apollo,
or his royal highness the Prince of Wales, who was bom
in the very same year with thee. Indeed, she always
thinks Coates’s picture of the prince is very like her eldest
boy, and has the print in her dressing-room to this very
day.* **"
In that same year with w’hat different prospects ! my
Lord Esmond, Lord Castlew^ood’s son, likewise appear^
to adorn the world. My Lord C. and his humble servant
had already come to a coolness at that time, and. Heaven
know’s ! my honest Miles’s godmother, at his entrance into
life, brought no gold pap-boats to his christening ! Matters
have mended since, Laus Deo — Lavs Deo, indeed ! for
I suspect neither Miles nor his father w^ould ever have been
able to do much for themselves, and by their own wits.
Castlew’ood House has quite a different face now from
that venerable one which it wore in the days of my youth,
when it was covered with the wrinkles of time, the scars
of old wars, the cracks and blemishes which years had
marked on its hoary features. I love best to remember
it in its old shape, as I saw it when young Mr. George
Warrington went down at the owmer’s invitation, to be
present at his lordship’s mswrriage with Miss Lydia Van
den Bosch — ‘ an American lady of noble family of Holland,’
as the county paper announc^ her ladyship to be. Then
the towers stood as Warrington’s grandfather the colonel
(the marquis, as Madam Esmond would like to call her
father) had seen them. The woods (thinned not a little
to be sure) stood, nay, some of the selfsame rooks may
have cawed over them, which the colonel had seen three-
score years back. His picture hung in the hall, which
might have been his, had he not preferred love and gratitude
to wealth and worldly honour ; and Mr. George Esmond
Warrington (that is, Egomet Ipse who write this page down),
as he walked the old place, pacing the long corridors, the
* Note, in a female hand : ‘ My son is not a s'pendthrift, nor a
breaker of womerCs hearts, as some gentlemen are ; but that he was
exceeding like H.R.H. when they were both babies, is most certain,
the Duchess of Ancaster having herself remarked him in St. James’s
Park, where Gumbo and my poor Molly used often to take him for
an airing. — Th. W.’
762
THE VIRGINIANS
smooth dew-spangled terraces, and cool darkling avenues,
felt awhile as if he was one of Mr. Walpole’s cavaliers
with ruff, rapier, buff-coat, and gorget, and as if an Old
Pretender, or a Jesuit emissary in disguise, might appear
tom behind any tall tree-trunk round about the mansion,
or antique carv^ cupboard within it. I had the strangest,
saddest, pleasantest, old-world fancies as I w^alked the
place ; I imagined tragedies, intrigues, serenades, escala-
does, Oliver’s Roundheads battering the towers, or bluff
Hal’s Beefeaters pricking over the plain before the castle.
I was then courting a certain young lady (madam, your
ladyship’s eyes had no need of spectacles then, and on the
brow above them there was never a wrinkle or a silver
hair), and I remember I wrote a ream of romantic descrip-
tion, under my Lord Castlewood’s franks, to the lady
who never tir^ of reading my letters then. She says
I only send her three lines now, when I am away in London
or elsewhere. ’Tis that I may not fatigue your old eyes,
my dear !
Mr. Warrington thought himself authorized to order a
genteel new suit of clothes for my lord’s marriage, and
with Mons. Gumbo in attendance, made his appearance
at Castlewood a few days before the ceremony. I may
mention that it had been found expedient to send my
faithful Sady home on board a Virginia ship. A great
inflammation attacking the throat and lungs, and proving
fatal in very many cases, in that year of Wolfe’s expedition,
had seized and wellnigh killed my poor lad, for whom his
native air was pronounced to be the best cure. We parted
with an abundance of team, and Gumbo shed as many
when his master went to Quebec : but he had attractions
in this country and none for the military life, so he remained
attached to my service. We found Castlewood House full
of friends, relations, and visitors. Lady Fanny was there
upon compulsion, a sulky bridesmaid. Some of the viigins
of the neighbourhood also attended the young countess.
A bishop’s widow herself, the Baroness Beatrix brought
a holy brother-in-law of the bench from London to tie the
holy knot of matrimony between Eugene Earl of Castle-
wood and Lydia Van den Bosch, spinster ; and for some
time before and after the nuptials the old house in Hamp-
shire wore an appearance of gaiety to wkich it had long
been unaccustomed. The country families came gladly to
MY LADY IS ON THE TOP OF THE LADDER 763
pay their compliments to the newly-married couple. The
lady’s wealth was the subject of everybody’s talk, and no
doubt did not decrease in the telling. Those naughty
stories which were rife in town, and spread by her dis-
appointed suitors there, took some little time to travel
into Hampshire ; and when they reached the country found
it disposed to treat Lord Castlewood’s wife with civility,
and not inclined to be too curious about her behaviour
in town. Suppose she had jilted this man, and laughed
at the other ? It was her money they w^ere anxious about,
and she was no more mercenary than they. The Hamp-
shire folks were determined that it was a great benefit to
the country to have Castlew’ood House once more open,
with beer in the cellars, horses in the stables, and spits
turning before the kitchen fires. The new lady took her
place with great dignity, and ’twas certain she had un-
common accomplishments and wit. Was it not written,
in the marriage advertisements, that her ladyship brought
her noble husband seventy thousand pounds ? On. a heau-
coup d'esprit with seventy thousand pounds. The Hamp-
shire people said this was only a small portion of her
wealth. When the grandfather should fall, ever so many
plums would be found on that old tree.
That quiet old man, and keen reckoner, began quicHy
to put the dilapidated Castlewood accounts in order, of
which long neglect, poverty, and improvidence had hastened
the ruin. The business of the old gentleman’s life now,
and for some time henceforth, was to advance, improve,
mend my lord’s finances ; to screw the rents up where
practicable ; to pare the expenses of the establishment
down. He could, somehow, look to every yard of w’orsted-
lace on the footmen’s coats, and every pound of beef that
went to their dinner. A watchful old eye noted every
flagon of beer which was fetched from the buttery, and
marked that no waste occurred in the larder. The people
were fewer, but more regularly paid ; the liveries were not
so ragged, and yet the tailor had no need to dun for his
money ; the gardeners and grooms grumbled, though their
w’ages were no longer overdue : but the horses fattened
on less corn, and the fruit and vegetables were ever so
much more plentiful — so keenly did my lady’s old grand-
father keep a watch over the household affairs, from his
lonely little chamber in the turret.
m THE VIRGINIANS
Tliese improvements, though here told in a paragraph
or two, were the ajffairs of months and years at Castle-
wood ; where, ^?^ith thrift, order, and judicious outlay of
money (how-ever, upon some pressing occasions, my lord
might say he had none) the estate and household increased
in prosperity. That it was a flourishing and economical
household no one could deny : not even the dowager lady
and her two children, who now seldom entered within
Castlewood gates, my lady considering them in the light
of enemies — ^for who, indeed, would like a step-mother-in-
law ? The little reigning countess gave the dowager battle,
and routed her utterly and speedily. Though educated in
the colonies, and ignorant of polite life during her early
years, the Countess Lydia had a power of language and a
strength of will that all had to acknowledge who quarrelled
with her. The dowager and my Lady Fanny were no
match for the young American : they fled from before her
to their jointure house in Kensington, and no wonder their
absence was not regretted by my lord, who was in the habit
of regretting no one whose back was turned. Could Cousin
Warrington, whose hand his lordship pressed so affec-
tionately on coming and parting, with whom Cousin Eugene
was so gay and frank and pleasant when they were together,
expect or hope that his lordship would grieve at his depar-
ture, at his death, at any misfortune which could happen
to him, or any souls alive ? Cousin Warrington knew better.
Always of a sceptical turn, Mr. W. took a grim delight in
watching the peculiarities of his neighbours, and could like
this one even though he had no courage and no heart.
Courage ? Heart ? What are these to you and me in the
world ? A man may have private virtues as he may have
half a million in the funds. What we du monde expect
is, that he should be lively, agreeable, keep a decent figure,
and pay his way. Colonel Esmond, Warrington’s grand-
father (in whose history and dwelling-place Mr. W. took
an extraordinary interest), might once have been owner of
this house of C^tlewood, and of the titles which belonged
to its possessor. The gentlemen often looked at the
colonel’s grave picture as it still hung in the saloon, a copy
or replica of which piece Mr. Warrington fondly remembered
in Virginia.
‘ He must have been a little touched here,’ my lord said,
tapping his own tall, placid forehead.
LADY IS ON THE TOP OF THE LADDER 705
There are certain actions simple and common some
men, which others cannot understand, and deny as utter
lies, or deride as acts of madness,
‘ I do you the justice to think, cousin,’ says Mr. War-
rington to his lordship, ‘ that you w^ould not give up any
advantage for any friend in the world,’
‘ Eh ! I am selfish : but am I more selfish than the
rest of the world ? ’ asks my lord, \vith a French shrug
of his shoulders, and a pinch out of his Ix)x. Once, in
their walks in the fields, his lordship happening to wear
a fine scarlet coat, a cow ran towards him ; and the
ordinarily languid nobleman sprang over a stile with the
agility of a schoolboy. He did not conceal his tremor,
or his natural w^ant of courage. ‘ I dare say you respect
me no more than I respect myself, George,’ he would say,
in his candid way, and begin a very pleasant sardonical
discourse upon the fall of man, and his faults, and short-
comings ; and w'onder why Heaven had not made us all
brave and tall, and handsome, and rich ? As for Mr. War-
rington, who very likely loved to be king of his company
(as some people do), he could not help liking this kinsman
of his, so witty, graceful, polished, high-placed in the
world — ^so utterly his inferior. Like the animal in Mr.
Sterne’s famous book, ‘ Do not beat me,’ his lordship’s
look seemed to say, but, if you will, you may.’ No man,
save a bully and coward himself, deals hardly with a
creature so spiritless.
760
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LXXin
WE KEEP CHBISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 1759
E know, my dear children, from
our favourite fairy story-
books, how at all christenings
and marriages some one is
invariably ^sappointed, and
vows vengeance ; and so need
not wonder that good cousin
Will should curse and rage
energetically at the news of
his brother’s engagement with
the colonial heiress. At first,
Will fled the house, in his
wrath, swearing he would
never return. But nobody,
including the swearer, be-
lieved much in Master Will’s oaths ; and this unrepentant
prodigal, after a day or two, came back to the paternal
house. The fumes of the marriage feast allured hbn : he
could not afford to resign his knife and fork at Castlewood
table. He returned, and drank and ate there in token of
revenge. He pledg^ the young bride in a bumper, and
drank perdition to her under his breath. He made responses
of smothered maledictions as her [grand]father gave her
away in the chapel and my lord vowed to love, honour, and
cherish her. He was not the only grumbler respecting that
marriage, as Mr. Warrington knew : he heard, then and
afterwards, no end of abuse of my lady and her grandfather.
The old gentleman’s city friends, his legal adviser, the
Dissenting clergyman at whose chapel they attended on
their first arrival in En^and, and poor Jack Lambert, the
orthodox young divine, whose eloquence he had fondly
hoped had been exerted over her in private, were bitter
against the little lady’s treachery, and each had a story
to tell of his having been enslaved, encouraged, jilted, by
the young American. The lawyer, who had had such an
accurate list of all her properties, estates, moneys, slaves,
ships, expectations, was ready^to vow and swear that he
CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 1759 767
believed the whole account was false : that there was no
such place as Kew York or Virginia ; or at any rate, that
Mr. Van den Bosch had no land there ; that there was
no such thing as a Guinea trade and that the negroes
were so many black falsehoods invented by the wily old
planter. The Dissenting pastor moaned over his stray
lambling — ^if such a little, vily, mischievous monster could
be call^ a lamb at all. Poor Jack Lambert ruefully
acknowledged to his mamma the possession of a lock of
black hair, which he bedewed with tears and apostrophized
in quite unclerical language : and, as for Mr. William
Esmond, he, with the shrieks and curses in which he always
freely indulged, even at Castlewood, under his sister-in-
law’s own pretty little nose, when under any strong emo-
tion, called Acheron to witness, that out of that region
there did not exist such an artful young devil as Miss
Lydia. He swore that she was an infernal female Cerberus,
and called down all the wrath of this wnrld and the next
upon his swindling rascal of a brother, w^ho had cajoled
him with fair wor&, and filched his prize from him.
‘ Why,’ says Mr. Warrington (when Will expatiated on
these matters with him), ‘ if the girl is such a she-devil
as you describe her, you are all the better for losing her.
If she intends to deceive her husband, and to give him
a dose of poison, as you say, how’ lucky for you, you are not
the man ! You ought to thank the gods. Will, instead
of cursing them for robbing you of such a fury, and can’t
be better revenged on Castlewood than by allowing him
her sole possession.’
‘ All this was very well,’ Will Esmond said ; but — ^not
unjustly, perhaps, — ^remarked that his brother was not
the less a scoundrel for having cheated him out of the
fortune which he expected to get, and which he had risked
his life to win, too.
George Warrington was at a loss to know how his cousin
had been made so to risk his precious existence (for which,
perhaps, a rope’s-end had been a fitting termination),
on which Will Esmond, with the utmost candour, told
his kinsman how the little Cerhera had actually caused
the meeting between them, which was interrupted somehow
by Sir John Fielding’s men ; how she was alw'ays saying
that George Warrington was a coward for ever sneering
at Mr. Will, and the latter doubly a poltroon for not taking
768
THE YIRGINIANS
notice of iiis kinsman’s taunts ; how George had run away
and nearly died of fright in Braddock’s expedition ; and
* Deuce take me’, says Will, ‘ I never was more surprised,
cousin, than when you stood to your ground so coolly in
Tottenham Court Fields yonder, for me and my second
offered to wager that you would never come I ’
Mr. Warrington laughed, and thanked Mr. Will for this
opinion of him.
" Though,’ says he, ‘ cousin, ’twas lucky for me the
constables came up, or you would have whipped your
sword through my body in another minute. Didn’t you
see how clumsy I was as I stood before you ? And you
actually turned white and shook with anger ! ’
‘ Yes, curse me,’ says Mr. Will (who turned very red
this time), ^ that’s my way of showing my rage ; and I
was confoundedly angry with you, cousin ! But now
’ris my brother I hate, and that little devil of a countess
— a countess ! a pretty counts, indeed ! ’ And, with
another rumbling cannonade of oaths. Will saluted the
reigning member of his family.
‘ Well, cousin,’ says George, looking him queerly in the
face, " you let me off easily, and, I dare say, I owe my life
to you, or at any rate a whole waistcoat, and I admire
your fOTbearance and spirit. What a pity that a courage
like yours should be wasted as a mere court usher I You
are a loss to his Majesty’s army. You positively are ! ’
‘ I never know whether you are joking or serious, Mr.
Warrington,’ growls WiU.
* I should think very few gentlemen would dare to joke
with you, cousin, if they had a regard for their own lives
or ears ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington, who loved this grave
way of dealing with his noble kinsman, and used to watch,
wi& a droll interest, the other choking his curses, grinding
his teeth because afraid to bite, and smothering his cowardly
anger.
‘ And you should moderate your expressions, cousin,
regarding the dear countess and my lord, your brother,’
Mr. Warrington resumed. " Of you they always speak
mcsst tenderly. Her lad3?T5hip has told me everything.’
‘ What, everything ? ’ cries Will, aghast.
‘ As much as women ever do tell, cousin. She ovmed
that die thought you had been a little epris with her. What
woman can help liking a man 'who has admired her ? ’
CHRISraAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 1750 769
‘ Why, she hates you, and says you were wild about her,
Mr. Warrington ! ’ says Mr. Esmond.
‘ S'preULe injuria format^ cousin ! ’
‘ For me, — what’s for me ? ’ asks the other.
‘ I never did care for her, and hence, perhaps, she does
not love me. Don’t you remember that case of the wife
of the captain of the guard ? ’
" Which guard ? ’ asks Will.
‘ My Lord Potiphar,’ says Mr. Warrington.
‘ Lord Who ? My Lord Falmouth is Captain of the
Yeomen of the Guard, and my Lord Berkeley of the Pen-
sioners. My Lord Hobart had ’em before. Suppose you
haven’t been long enough in England to know who’s who,
cousin ! ’ remarks Mr. William.
But Mr. Warrington explained that he was speaking of
a captain of the guard of the Eang of Egypt, whose wife
had persecuted one Joseph for not returning her affection
for him. On which Will said that, as for Egypt, he believed
it was a confounded long way off, and that, if Lord What-
d’ye-call’s wife told lies about him, it was like her sex, who
he supposed were the same ever3rv^1iere.
Now the truth is, that when he paid his marriage visit
to Castlewood, Mr. Warrington had heard from the little
countess her version of the story of differences between
Will Esmond and herself. And this tale differed, in some
respects, though he is far from saying it is more authentic
than the ingenuous narrative of Mr. Will, The lady was
grieved to think how she had been deceived in her brother-
in-law. She feared that his life about the Court and town
had injured those high principles which all the Esmonds
are known to be born with ; that Mr. Will’s words were
not altogether to be trusted ; that a loose life and pecuniary
difficulties had made him mercenary, blunted liis honour,
perhaps even impaired the high chivalrous courage ‘ which
we Esmonds, cousin’, the little lady said, tossing her head,
‘ which we Esmonds most alw^ays possess — ^leastways, you
and me, and my lord, and my Cousin Harry have it, I know I ’
says the countess. ‘ Oh, Cousin George ! and must I
confess that I was led to doubt of yours, without wiiich a
man of ancient and noble family like ours isn’t worthy to
be called a man ! I shall try, George, as a Christian lady,
and the head of one of the first families in this kingdom and
the whole world, to forgive my brother William for having
VIRGINIANS C C
770
THE VIRGINIANS
spoke ill of a member of our family, though a younger
branch and by the female side, and made me for a moment
doubt of you. He did so. Perhaps he told me ever so
many bad things you had said of me.’
‘ I, my dear lady ! ’ cries Mr. Warrington,
* T^ch he said you said of me, cousin, and I hope
you didn’t, and heartily pray you didn’t ; and I can afford
to despise ’em. And he paid me his court, that’s a fact ;
and so have others, and that I’m used to ; and he might
have prospered better than he did perhaps (for I did not
know my dear lord, nor come to vally his great and eminent
qualities, as I do out of the fullness of this grateful heart
now !), but, oh ! I found William was deficient in courage,
and no man as wants that can ever have the esteem of
Lydia Countess of Castlewood, no more he can 1 He said
’twas you that wanted for spirit, cousin, and angered
me by telling me that you was always abusing of me. But
I forgive you, George, that I do ! And when I tell you that
it was he was afraid — ^the mean skunk ! — and actually
sent for them constables to prevent the match between
you and he, you won’t wonder I wouldn’t vaUy a feller
hke that — ^no, not that much ! ’ and her ladyship snapped
her little fingers. ‘ I say, noblesse oblige, and a man of our
family who hasn’t got courage, I don’t care not this pinch
of snuff for him — ^there, now, I don’t ! Look at our ances-
tors, George, round these walls ! Haven’t the Esmonds
always fought for their country and king ? Is there one
of us that, when the moment arrives, ain’t ready to show
that he’s an Esmond and a nobleman ? If my eldest
son was to show the white feather, “ My Lord Esmond ! **
I would say to him (for that’s the second title in our family),
“ I disown your lordship ! ” ’ And so saying, the intrepid
little woman looked round at her ancestors, whose efSgies,
depicted by Lely and KneUer, figured round the walls
of her drawing-room at Castlewood.
Over that apartment, and the whole house, domain,
and village, the new countess speedily began to rule with
an unlimit^ sway. It was surprising how quickly she
learned the ways of command ; and, if she did not adopt
those methods of precedence usual in England among
great ladies, invented regulations for herself, and promul-
gated them, and made others submit. Having been bred
a Dissenter, and not being over familiar with the Established
A GEEAT LADY
CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 1759 773
Church service, Mr. Warrington remarked that she made
a blunder or two during the office (not know ing, for example,
when she was to turn her face towards the east, a custom
not adopted, I believe, in other reforming Churches besides
the English) ; but between Warrington’s first bridal visit
to Castlewood and his second, my lady had got to be quite
perfect in that part of her duty, and sailed into chapel
on her cousin’s arm, her two footmen bearing her ladyship’s
great prayer-book behind her, as demurely as that delight-
ful old devotee vith her lackey, in Mr. Hogarth’s famous
picture of ‘ Morning and as if my lady Lydia had been
accustomed to have a chaplain all her life. She seemed
to patronize not only the new chaplain, but the service
and the church itself, as if she had never in her own country
heard a Ranter in a barn. She made the oldest-established
families in the country — grave baronets and their wives —
worthy squires of twenty descents, who rode over to Castle-
wood to pay the bride and bridegroom honour — know
their distance, as the phrase is, and give her the pas. She
got an old heraldry book ; and a surprising old maiden
lady from Winton, learned in politeness and genealogies,
from whom she learned the Court etiquette (as the old
Winton lady had known it in Queen Anne’s time), and ere
long she jabbered gules and sables, bends and saltires,
not with correctness always, but with a w^onderful volubility
and perseverance. She made little progresses to the
neighbouring towns in her gilt coach-and-six, or to the
village in her chair, and asserted a quasi-regal right of hom-
age from her tenants and other clodpoles. She lectured
the parson on his divinity ; the bailiff on his farming ;
instructed the astonished housekeeper how to preserve
and pickle ; would have taught the great London footmen
to jump behind the carriage, only it was too high for her
little ladyship to mount ; gave the village gossips instruc-
tions how to nurse and take care of their children long
before she had one herself ; and as for physic, Madam
Esmond in Virginia was not more resolute about her pills
and draughts than Miss Lydia, the earl’s new bride. Do
you remember the story of the fisherman and the genie,
in the Arabian Nights ? So one wondered with regard to
this lady, how such a prodigious genius could have been
corked dowm into such a little bottle as her body. When
Sir. Warrington returned to London after his first nuptial
774
THE VIRGINIANS
visit, she brought him a little present for her young friends
in Dean Street, as she called them (Theo being older, and
Hetty scarce younger than herself), and sent a trinket
to one and a book to the other — 6. Warrington always
vowing that Theo’s present was a doll, while Hetty’s share
was a nursery-book with words of one syllable. As for
Mr. Will, her younger brother-in-law, she treated him
with a maternal gravity and tenderness, and was in the
habit of speaking of and to him with a protecting air,
which was infinitely diverting to Warrington, although
Will’s usual curses and blasphemies were sorely increased
by her behaviour.
As for old age, my lady Lydia had little respect for
that accident in the life of some gentlemen and gentle-
women ; and, once the settlements were made in her
behalf, treated the ancient Van den Bosch and his large
periwig with no more ceremony than Dinah her black
attendant, whose great ears she would pinch, and whose
woolly pate she would pull without scruple, upon offence
given — ^so at least Dinah told Gumbo, who told his master.
AH the household trembled before my lady the countess :
the housekeeper, of whom even my lord and the dowager
had been in awe ; the pampered London footmen, who
used to quarrel if they were disturbed at their cards, and
grumbled as they swilled the endless beer, now stepped
nimbly about their business w^hen they heard her ladyship’s
call ; even old Lockwood, who had been gate-porter for
half a century or more, tried to rally his poor old wandering
wits when she came into his lodge to open his window,
inspect his wood-closet, and turn his old dogs out of doors.
Lockwood bared his old bald head before his new mistress,
turned an appealing look towards his niece, and vaguely
trembled before her little ladyship’s authority. Gumbo,
dressing his master for dinner, talked about Elisha (of
whom he had heard the chaplain read in the morning),
‘ and his bald head and de boys who call um names, and
de bars eat em up, and serve um right,’ says Gumbo. But
as for my lady, when discoursing with her cousin about
the old porter, ‘ Pooh, pooh ! Stupid old man ! ’ says
she ' ‘ past his work, he and his dirty old dogs ! They
are as old and ugly as those old fish in the pond I ’ (Here
she pointed to two old monsters of carp that had been
in a pond in Castlewood gardens for centuries, according
CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 1759
775
to tradition, and had their backs all covered with a hideous
^ey mould.) ‘ Lockwood must pack off ; the workhouse
is the place for him ; and I shall have a smart, good-looking,
tall fellow in the lodge that will do credit to our livery.’
‘ He was my grandfather’s man, and served him in the
wars of Queen Anne,’ interposed Mr. Warrington. On
which my lady cried, petulantly, ‘ Oh, Lord I Queen Anne’s
dead, I suppose, and we ain’t a-going into mourning for her,’
This matter of Lockwood w^as discussed at the family
dinner, when her ladyship announced her intention of
getting rid of the old man.
‘ I am told,’ demurely remarks Mr. Van den Bosch,
‘ that, by the law's, poor servants and poor folks of all
kinds are admirably provided in their old age here in
England. I am sure I wish w'e had such an asylum for
oxir folks at home, and that we were eased of the expense
of keeping our old hands.’
‘ If a man can’t work he ought to go ! ’ cries her ladyship.
‘ Yes, indeed, and that’s a fact ! ’ says grandpapa.
‘ What ! an old servant ? ’ asks my lord.
‘ Mr. Van den Bosch possibly was independent of servants
when he was young,’ remarks Mr. Warrington.
‘ Greased my owm boots, opened my own shutters, sanded
and watered my own
^ Sugar, sir ? ’ says my lord.
No ; floor, son-in-law ! ’ says the old man, with a laugh ;
‘ though there is such tricks in grocery-stores, saving your
ladyship’s presence.’
‘ La, pa I what should I know about stores and groceries ? ’
cries her ladyship.
‘ He I Remember stealing the sugar, and what came
on it, my dear ladyship ? ’ says grandpapa.
" At any rate, a handsome weU-grown man in our livery
will look better than that shrivelled old porter creature ! ’
cries my lady,
‘ No livery is so becoming as old age, madam, and no
lace as handsome as silver hairs,’ says Mr. Warrington.
‘ What will the county say if you banish old Lockwood ? ’
‘ Oh ! if you plead for him, sir, I suppose he must stay.
Hadn’t I better order a couch for him out of my drawing-
room, and send him some of the best wine from the cellar ? ’
‘ Indeed your ladyship couldn’t do better,’ Mr. Warrington
remarked very gravely.
776
THE VIRGINIANS
And my lord said, yawning, ‘ Cousin Gteorge is perfectly
right, my dear. To turn aw'ay such an old servant as
L^kwood would have an ill look.’
‘ You see those mouldy old carps are, after all, a curiosity,
and attract visitors,’ continues Mr. Warrington gravely.
‘ Your ladyship must allow this old wTetch to remain.
It won’t be for long. And you may then engage the tall
porter. It is very hard on us, Mr. Van den Bosch, that
we are obliged to keep our old negroes when they are past
work. I shall sell that rascal Gumbo in eight or ten years.’
‘ Don’t tink you will, master ! ’ says Gumbo, grinning.
‘ Hold your tongue, sir ! He doesn’t know English
w’ays, you see, and perhaps thinks an old servant has a
claim on his master’s kindness,’ says Mr. Warrington,
The next day, to Warrington’s surprise, my lady abso-
lutdly did send a basket of good wine to Lockwood, and
a cushion for his armchair.
‘ I thought of what you said, yesterday, at night when
I w^ent to bed ; and guess you Imow the w’orld better than
I do, cousin ; and that it’s best to keep the old man, as
you say.’
And so this affair of the porter’s-lodge ended, Mr. Warring-
ton wondering within himself at this strange little character
out of the West, with her TWiiveti and simplicities, and a
heartlessness w'ould have done credit to the most battered
old dow^ager w’ho ever turned trumps in St. James’s.
‘ You tell me to respect old people. Why ? I don’t
see nothin’ to respect in the old people, I know,’ she said
to Warrington. ^ They ain’t so funny, and I’m sure they
ain’t so handsome. Look at grandfather ; look at Aunt
Bernstein. They say she was a beauty once ! That
picture painted from her I I don’t believe it, nohow.
No one shall tell me that I shall ever be as bad as that !
When they come to that, people oughtn’t to live. No,
that they oughtn’t.’
Now, at Christmas, Aunt Bernstein came to pay her
nephew and niece a visit, in company with Mr. Warrington.
They travelled at their leisure in the baroness’s own landau ;
the old lady being in particular good health and spirits,
the weather delightfully fresh and not too cold; and,
as they approached her paternal home, Aunt Beatrice told
her companion a hundred stories regarding it and old days.
Though often lethargic, and not seldom, it must be confessed,
CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOB, 1750
777
out of temper, the old lady would light up at times, when
her conversation became wonderfully lively, her wit and
malice were brilliant, and her memory supplied her with
a hundred anecdotes of a bygone age and society. Sure,
’tis hard with respect to beauty, that its possessor should
not have even a life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled
to resign it after, at the most, some forty years’ lease.
As the old woman prattled of her former lovers and admirers
(her auditor having much more information regarding her
past career than her ladyship knew of), I would look in
her face, and, out of the ruins, try to build up in my fancy
a notion of her beauty in its prime. What a homily I read
there ! How the courts w^ere grown with grass, the towers
broken, the doors ajar, the fine gilt saloons tarnished,
and the tapestries cobwebbed and torn ! Yonder dilapi-
dated palace was all alive once with splendour and music,
and those dim windows were dazzling and blazing with
light ! What balls and feasts were once here, w^hat splen-
dour and laughter ! I could see lovers in waiting, crow^ds
in admiration, rivals furious. I could imagine twilight
assignations, and detect intrigues, though the curtains
were close and drawn. I w’as often minded to say to the
old woman as she talked, ‘ Madam, I know the story
was not as you tell it, but so and so ’ — (I had read at home
the history of her life, as my dear old grandfather had
wrote it) : and my fancy wandered about in her, amused
and solitary, as I had walked about our father’s house at
Castlewood, meditating on departed glories, and imagining
ancient times.
When Aunt Bernstein came to Castlewood, her relatives
there, more I think on account of her own force of character,
imperiousness, and sarcastic wit, than from their desire to
possess her money, were accustomed to pay her a great deal
of respect and deference, which she accepted as her due.
She expected the same treatment from the new countess,
whom she was prepared to greet with special good humour.
The match had been of her making. " As you, you silly
creature, would not have the heiress,’ she said, ‘ I was
determined she should not go out of the family,’ and she
laughingly told, of many little schemes for bringing the
marriage about. She had given the girl a coronet and her
nephew a hundred thousand pounds. Of course she should
be welcome to both of them. She w^as delighted with the
c c 3
778
THE VIRGINIANS
little countess’s courage and spirit in routing the dowager
and Lady Fanny, ^most always pleased with pretty
people on her first introduction to them, Madame Bernstein
raffde'd of her niece Lydia’s bright eyes and lovely little
figure. The marriage was altogether desirable. The old
man was an obstacle, to be sure, and his talk and appearance
somewhat too homely. But he will be got rid of. He is
old and in delicate health. ‘ He will want to go to America,
or perhaps farther,’ says the baroness, with a shrug. As
for the child, she had great fire and liveliness, and a Cherokee
manner, which is not without its charm,’ said the pleased
old baroness. " Your brother had it — so have you. Master
George ! Noils la formerons^ cette petite. Eugene w^ants
character and vigour, but he is a finished gentleman,
and between us we shall make the little savage perfectly
presentable.’ In this way we discoursed on the second
afternoon as w^e journeyed towards Castlewood. We lay
at the ‘ King’s Arms ’ at Bagshot the first night, where the
baroness w^as alw’ays receiv^ with profound respect, and
thence drove post to Hexton, w’here she had wTitten to
have my lord’s horses in w^aiting for her ; but these were
not forthcoming at the inn, and after a couple of hours
we were obliged to proceed with our Bagshot horses to
Castlewood.
During this last stage of the journey, I am bound to say
the old aunt’s testy humour returned, and she scarce
spoke a single word for three hours. As for her companion ;
being prodigiously in love at the time, no doubt he did
not press his aunt for conversation, but thought unceasingly
about his Dulcinea, until the coach actually reached Castle-
wood common, and rolled over the bridge before the
house.
The housekeeper w^as ready to conduct her ladyship
to her apartments. My lord and lady were both absent.
She did not know what had kept them, the housekeeper
said, heading the way.
‘ Not that door, my lady ! ’ cries the w^oman, as Madame
de Bernstein put her hand upon the door of the room
which she had always occupied. ‘ That’s her ladysliip’s
room now. This way,’ and our aunt follow^ed, by no
means in increased good humour. I do not envy her maids
when their mistress was displeased. But she had cleared
her brow before she joined the family, and appeared in the
CHEISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 17o9 770
drawing-room before supper-time with a countenance of
tolerable serenity.
‘ Howr d’ye do, aunt ? ’ w’as the countess’s salutation.
‘ I declare now', I w'as taking a nap w'hen your ladyship
arrived ! Hope you found your room fixed to your liking ! ’
Having addressed three brief sentences to the astonished
old lady, the countess now' turned to her other guests,
and directed her conversation to them. IVIr. Warrington
W'as not a little diverted by her behaviour, and by the appear-
ance of surprise and wTath w'hich began to gather over
Madame Bernstein’s face. ‘ La petite,^ whom the baroness
proposed to ‘ form w'as rather a rebellious subject,
apparently, and proposed to take a form of her own. Look-
ing once or twice rather anxiously tow'ards his wife, my
lord tried to atone for her pertness tow'ards his aunt by
profuse civility on his owm part ; indeed, w'hen he so wished,
no man could be more courteous or pleasing. He found
a score of agreeable things to say to Madame Bernstein. He
w'armly congratulated Mr. Warrington on the glorious
new's which had come from America, and on his brother’s
safety. He drank a toast at supper to Captain Warrington.
‘ Our family is distinguishing itself, cousin,’ he said ; and
added, looMng with fond significance tow'ards his countess,
‘ I hope the happiest days are in store for us all.’
‘ Yes, George ! ’ says the little lady. ‘ You’ll w'rite and
tell Harry that w'e are all very much pleased with him.
This action at Quebec is a most glorious action ; and now
w'e have turned the French king out of the country, shouldn’t
be at all surprised if w'e set up for ourselves in America.’
" My love, you are talking treason ! ’ cries Lord Castle-
w'ood.
‘ I am talking reason, anyhow', my lord. I’ve no notion
of folks being kept dowm, and treated as children for ever I ’
George ! Harry ! I protestlw^as almost as much astonished
as amused. ‘ When my brother hears that your ladyship
is satisfied with his conduct, his happiness will be complete,’
I said gravely.
Next day, w'hen talking beside her sofa, w^here she
chose to lie in state, the little countess no longer called
her cousin ‘ George’, but ‘ Mr. George’, as before ; on which
Mr. George laughingly said she had changed her language
since the previous day.
‘ Guess I did it to tease old Madam Buzwig,’ says her
780
THE \TRGINIAKS
ladyship. ‘ She wants to treat me as a child, and do
the grandmother over me. I don’t want no grandmothers,
I don’t. I’m the head of this house, and I intend to let
her know it. And I’ve brought her all the way from London
in order to tell it her, too ! La ! how she did look when
I called you George ! I might have called you George —
only you had seen that little Theo jfirst, and Hked her best,
I suppose.’
‘ Yes, I suppose I like her best,’ says Mr. George.
‘ Well, I like you because you tell the truth. Because
you ^was the only one of ’em in London who didn’t seem
to care for my money, though I was downright mad and
angry vith you once, and with myself too, and with that
little sweetheart of yours, who ain’t to be compared to me,
I know she ain’t.’
* Don’t let us make the comparison, then ! ’ I said,
laughing.
‘ I suppose people must lie on their beds as they make
’em,’ says she, vith a little sigh. ‘ Dare say Miss Theo is
very good, and you’ll marry her and go to Virginia, and
be as dull as we are here. We were talking of Miss Lambert,
my lord, and I was wishing my couan joy. How is old
Groody to-day? What a supper she did eat last night
and drink ! — drink like a dragoon ! No wonder she has
got a headache, and keeps her room. Guess it takes her
ever so long to dress herself.’
‘ You, too, may be feeble when you are old, and require
rest and wine to warm you ! ’ says Mr. Warrington.
‘ Hope I shan’t be hke Aer when I’m old, anyhow ! ’
says the lady. ‘ Can’t see why I am to respect an old
woman, because she hobbles on a stick, and has shaky
hands, and false teeth ! ’ And the little heathen sank
back on her couch, and showed twenty-four pearls of her
own.
‘ Law ! ’ she adds, after gazing at both her hearers
through the curled lashes of her brilliant dark eyes. * How
frightened you both look ! My lord has already given
me ever so many sermons about old Goody. You are
both afraid of her : and I ain’t, that’s all. Don’t look so
scared at one another ! I ain’t a-going to bite her head
df. We shall have a battle, and I intend to win. How
did I serve the dowager, if you please, and my Lady Fanny,
with tlieir high and mighty airs, when they tried to put
CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEWOOD, 1759 781
down the Countess of Castlewood in her own house, and
laugh at the poor American girl ? We had a fight, and
which got the best of it, pray ? Me and Goody will have
another, and when it is over, you will see that we shall
both be perfect friends ! ’
When at this point of our conversation, the door opened
and Madam Beatrix, elaborately dressed according to her
wont, actually made her appearance, I, for my part, am
not ashamed to own that I felt as great a panic as ever
coward experienced. My lord, with his profoundest bows
and blandest courtesies, greeted his aunt and led her to
the fire, by which my lady (who was already hoping for
an heir to Castlewood) lay reclining on her sofa. She did
not attempt to rise, but smiled a greeting to her venerable
guest. And then, after a brief talk, in vrhich she showed
a perfect self-possession, while the two gentlemen blundered
and hesitated with the most dastardly tremor, my lord
said : —
‘ If we are to look for those pheasants, cousin, we had
better go now.’
‘ And I and aunt will have a cosy afternoon. And you
will ten me about Castlewood in the old times ? Won’t
you, baroness ? ’ says the new mistress of the mansion.
0 Us laches gwe les hommes I I was so frightened, that
I scarce saw anything, but vaguely felt that Lady Castle-
wood’s dark eyes were foUowing me. My lord gripped
my arm in the corridor, we quickened our paces till our
retreat became a disgraceful run. We did not breathe
freely tiU we were in the open air in the courtyard, where
the keepers and the dogs were waiting.
And what happened ? I protest, children, I don’t know.
But this is certain ; if your mother had been a woman of
the least spirit, or had Imown how to scold for five minutes
during as many consecutive days of her early married
life, there would have been no more humble, henpecked
wretch in Christendom than your father. When Parson
Blake comes to dinner, don’t you see how at a glance
from his little wife, he puts his glass down and says,
‘ No, thank you, Mr. Gumbo,’ when old Gum brings him
wine ? Blake wore a red coat before he took to black,
and walked up Breed’s Hill with a thousand bullets whistling
round his ears, before ever he saw owr Bunker HiU in
782
THE VIRGINIAXS
Suffolk. And the fire-eater of the 43rd now dare not face
a glass of old port wine ! ’Tis his wife has subdued his
courage. The women can master us, and did they know
their own strength were invincible.
Well, then, what happened I know not on that disgraceful
day of panic when your father fled the field, nor dared
to see the heroines engage ; but when we returned from
our shooting, the battle was over. America had revolted,
and conquered the mother-country.
CiHAPTER LXXIV
iraws FROM CANADA
TJB Castlewood relatives
kept us with them till
the commencement of the
new year, and after a
fortnight’s absence (which
seem^ like an age to
the absurd and i^atu-
ated young man) he
returned to the side of
Ms charmer. Madame de
Bernstein was not sorry
to leave the home of her
father. She began to talk
more freely as we got
aw’ay from the place.
What passed during that
interview in wMch the
battle-royal between her
and her niece occurred,
never revealed. But the old lady talked no more of
forming ceUe 'petite, and indeed, when she alluded to her,
spoke in a nervous, laughing way, but without any hosti-
lity towards the young countess. Her nephew Eugene,
she said, was doomed to be henpecked for the rest of Ms
days ; that she saw clearly. A little order brought into the
house would do it all the good possible. The little old vulgar
Amiericangentleman seemed to be a shrewd person, and would
NEWS PROM CANADA
783
act advantageously as a steward. The countess’s mother
was a convict, she had heard, sent out from England,
where no doubt she had beaten hemp in most of the jails ;
but this news need not be carried to the town-crier ; and,
after all, in respect to certain kind of people, what mattered
what their birth was ? The young woman would be honest
for her own sake now : -was shrewd enough, and w^ould
learn English presently ; and the name to w^hich she had
a right was great enough to get her into any society. A
grocer, a smuggler, a slave-dealer, w^hat mattered Mr.
Van den Bosch’s pursuit or previous profession ? The
Countess of Castlew^ood could afford to be anybody’s
daughter, and as soon as my nephew produced her, says
the old lady, it is our duty to stand by her.
The ties of relationship binding Madame de Bernstein
strongly to her nephew, Mr. Warrington hoped that she
would be disposed to be equally affectionate to her niece ;
and spoke of his visit to Mr. Hagan and his wife, for w^hom
he entreated her aunt’s favour. But the old lady was
obdurate regarding Lady Maria ; begged that her name
might never be mentioned, and immediately went on for
tw^o hours talking about no one else. She related a series
of anecdotes regarding her niece, which, as this book
lies open virginibus 'puerisque, to all the young people of
the family, I shall not choose to record. But .this I will
say of the kind creature, that if she sinned, she w^as not
the only sinner of the family, and if she repented, that
others will do w^ell to follow her example. Hagan, ’tis
knowTi, after he left the stage, led an exemplary life, and
was remarkable for elegance and eloquence in the pulpit.
His lady adopted extreme views, but was greatly respected
in the sect which she joined ; and when I saw her last,
talked to me of possessing a peculiar spiritual illumination,
wiiich I strongly suspected at the time to be occasioned
by the too free use of hquor : but I remember w^hen she and
her husband were good to me and mine, at a period w^hen
sjnnpathy was needful, and many a Pharisee turned away.
I have told how easy it was to rise and fall in my fickle
aunt’s favour, and how each of us brothers, by turns,
w^as embraced and neglected. My turn of glory had been
after the success of my play, I was introduced to the
town- wits ; held my place in their company tolerably
w^ell ; w'as pronounced to be pretty w^ell bred by the Maca-
784
THE VIRGIKIANS
ronis and people of fashion, and might have run a career
amount them had my purse been long enough ; had I
chose to follow that life ; had I not loved at that time a
pair of kind eyes better than the brightest orbs of the
Gunnings or Chudleighs, or all the painted beauties of the
Ranelagh ring. Because I was fond of your mother, will
it be felieved, children, that my tastes were said to be
low, and deplored by my genteel family ? So it was, and
I know that my godly Lady Warrington and my worldly
Madame Bernstein both laid their elderly heads together
and lamented my way of life. ‘Why, with his name,
he might marry anybody,* says meek Religion, who had
ever one eye on heaven and one on the main chance. ‘ I
meddle with no man’s affairs, and admire genius,* says
uncle, ‘ but it a pity you consort with those poets and
authors, and that sort of people, and that, when you might
have had a lovely creature, with a hundred thousand
pounds, you let her slip and make up to a country-girl
without a penny-piece.’
‘ But if I had promised her, uncle ? ’ says I.
‘ Promise, promise ! these things are matters of arrange-
ment and prudence, and demand a careful look-out. When
you first committ^ yourself with little Mss Lambert,
you had not seen the lovely American lady whom your
mother wished you to marry, as a good mother naturally
would. And your duty to your mother, nephew, — ^your
duty to the Fifth Commandment, would have warranted
your breaking with Mss L.; and fulfilling your excellent
mother’s intentions regarding Mss What was the
countess’s Dutch name ? Never mind. A name is nothing ;
but a plum. Master George, is something to look at !
Why, I have my dear little Miley at a dancing-school
with Mss BarweU, nabob Barwell’s daughter, and I don’t
disguise my wish that the children may contract an attach-
ment which may endure through their lives ! I tell the
nabob so. We went from the House of Commons one
dancing-day and saw them. ’Twas beautiful to see the
young things walking a minuet together ! It brought
tears into my eyes, for I have a feeling heart, George,
and I love my boy I ’
‘But if I prefer Mss Lambert, uncle, with twopence
to her fortune, to the countess, with her hundred, thousand
pounds?’
NEWS FROM CANADA
785
* Why then, sir, you have a singular taste, that’s all,’
says the old gentleman, turning on his heel and leaving
me. And I could perfectly understand his vexation at
my not being able to see the world as he viewed it.
Nor did my Aunt Bernstein much like the engagement
which I had made, or the family with w’hich I passed so
much of my time. Their simple ways wearied, and perhaps
annoyed, the old woman of the world, and she no more
rehshed their company than a certain person (w’ho is not
so black as he is painted) likes holy w^ater. The old lady
chafed at my for ever dangling at my sw^eetheart’s lap.
Having risen mightily in her favour, I began to fall again :
and once more Harry w^as the favourite, and his brother,
Heaven knows, not jealous.
He was now our family hero. He wrote us brief letters
from the seat of war, where he was engaged, Madame Bern-
stein caring little at jSrst about the letters or the writer,
for they were simple, and the facts he narrated not over
interesting. We had early learned in London the news
of the action on the glorious first of August at Minden,
where Wolfe’s old regiment was one of the British six
which helped to achieve the victory on that famous day.
At the same hour, the young general lay in his bed, in
sight of Quebec, stricken down by fever, and perhaps
rage and ^sappointment, at the check which his troops
hsS just received.
Arriving in the St. Lawrence in June, the fleet which
brought Wolfe and his army had landed them on the
last day of the month on the Island of Orleans, opposite
which rises the great chff of Quebec. After the great
action in which his general fell, the dear brother who accom-
panied the chief wrote home to me one of his simple letters,
describing his modest share in that glorious day, but added
nothing to the many descriptions already wrote of the action
of the 13th of September, save only I remember he wrote,
from the testimony of a brother aide de camp who was
by his side, that the general never sfoke at all after receiving
his death-wound, so that the phrase which has been put
into the mouth of the dying hero may be considered as no
more authentic than an oration of livy or Thucydides.
From his position on the island, which lies in the great
channel of the river to the north of the town, the general
was ever hunsrilv on the look out for a chance to meet
786
THE VIEGINIANS
and attack his enemy. Above the city and below it he
land^, — now here and now there ; he was bent upon
attacking wherever he saw an opening. ’Twas surely a
prodigious fault on the part of the Marquis of Montcalm,
to accept a battle from Wolfe on equal terms, for the
British general had no artillery, and when we liad made
our famous scalade of the heights, and were on the Plains
of Abraham, we were a little nearer the city, certainly,
but as far off as ever from being within it.
The game that was played between the brave chiefs
of those two gallant little armies, and which lasted from
July until Mr. XVolfe won the crowning hazard in September,
must have been as interesting a match as ever eager players
engaged in. On the very first night after the lan&ng
(as my brother has narrated it) the sport began. At mid-
night the French sent a flaming squadron of fire-ships
down upon the British ships which were discharging
their stores at Orleans, Our seamen thought it was good
sport to tow the fire-ships clear of the fleet, and ground
them on the shore, where they burned out.
As soon as the French commander heard that our ships
had entered the river, he marched to Beauport in advance
of the city, and there took up a strong position. When
our stores and hospitals were established, our general
crossed over from his island to the left shore, and drew
nearer to his enemy. He had the ships in the river behind
him, but the whole country in face of him was in arms.
The Indians in the forest seized our advanced parties as
they strove to clear it, and murdered them with horrible
tortures. The French were as savage as their Indian
friends. The Montmorenci River rushed betw^een Wolfe
and the enemy. He could neither attack these nor the
city behind them.
Bent on seeing whether there was no other point at
which his foe might be assailable, the general passed round
the town of Quebec and skirted the left shore beyond.
Everywhere it was guarded, as well as in liis immediate
front, and having run the gauntlet of the batteries up
and down the river, he returned to his post at Montmorenci.
On the right of the French position, across the Montmorenci
River, which was fordable at low tide, was a redoubt of
the enemy. He would have that. Perhaps, to defend it,
the^ French chief would be forced out from his lines, and
NEWS FROM CANADA
787
a battle be brought on. Wolfe determined to play these
odds. He would fetch over the body of his army from
the island of Orleans, and attack from the St. LawTence.
He would time his attack, so that, at shallow water, his
lieutenants, Murray and Townsend, might cross the Mont-
morenci, and, at the last day of July, he played this desperate
game.
He first, and General Monckton, his second in command
(setting out from Point Levi, which he occupied), crossed
over the St. Lawrence from their respective stations, being
received with a storm of shot and artillery as they rowed
to the shore. No sooner were the troops landed than
they rushed at the French redoubt without order, w’ere
shot down before it in great numbers, and were obliged
to fall back. At the preconcerted signal the troops on the
other side of the Montmorenci advanced across the river
in perfect order. The enemy even evacuated the redoubt,
and fell back to their lines ; but from these the assailants
were received .with so severe a fire that an impression on
them w^as hopeless, and the general had to retreat.
That , battle of Montmorenci (w^hich my brother Harry
and I have fought again many a time over our wine) formed
the dismal burthen of the first dispatch from Mr. Wolfe
which reached England, and plunged us all in gloom.
What more might one expect of a commander so rash ?
What disasters might one not foretell ? Was ever scheme
so wild as to bring three great bodies of men, across broad
rivers, in the face of murderous batteries, merely on the
chance of inducing an enemy strongly entrenched and
guarded, to leave his position and come out and engage
us ? ’Twas the talk of the town. No wonder grave
people shook their heads, and prophesied fresh disaster.
The general, who took to his bed after this failure, shudder-
ing with fever, w^as to live barely six weeks longer, and
die immortal ! Howr is it, and by w’hat, and w'hom, that
Greatness is achieved ? Is Merit — ^is Madness the patron ?
Is it Frolic or Fortune ? Is it Fate that aw'ards successes
and defeats ? Is it the Just Cause that ever wins ? How’
did the French gain Canada from the savage, and w^e
from the French, and after which of the conquests w^as the
right time to sing Te Deum ? We are always for implicating
Heaven in our quarrels, and causing the gods to intervene
whatever the nodus may be. Does Broughton, after
78S
THE VIKGINIANS
pummelling and beating Slack, lift up a black eye to Jove
and thank him for the victory? And if ten thousand
boxers are to be so heard, why not one ? And if Broughton
is to be grateful, what is Slack to be ?
‘ By the list of disabled ofiScers (many of whom are of
rank) you may perceive, sir, that the army is much weakened.
By the nature of this river the most formidable part of
the armament is deprived of the power of acting, yet we
have almost the whole force of Canada to oppose. In
this situation there is such a choice of difficulties, that I
own myself at a loss how to determine. The affairs of
Great Britain, I know’, require the most vigorous measures ;
but then the courage of a handful of brave men should
be exerted only where there is some hope of a favourable
event. The admiral and I have examined the town with a
view to a general assault : and he would readily Join in
this or any other measure for the public service ; but I
cannot propose to him an undertaking of so dangerous
a nature, and promising so little success. ... I found
myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I begged the general
officers to consult together for the public utility. They
are of opinion that they should try by conveying up a corps
of 4,000 or 6,000 men (which is nearly the whole strength
of the army, after the points of Levi and Orleans are put
in a proper state of defence) to draw the enemy from their
present position, and bring them to an action. I have
acquiesc^ in their proposal, and we are preparing to put
it into execution.’
So wrote the general (of whose noble letters it is clear
mr dear scribe was not the author or secretary) from his
head quarters at Montmorenci Balls on the 2nd day of
September: and on the 14th of October following, the
cutter arrived with the sad news in England.
The attack had failed, the chief was sick, the army dwin-
dling, the menaced city so strong that assault was almost
impossible ; ‘ the only chance was to fight the Marquis of
Montcalm upon terms of less disadvantage than attacking
his entrenchments, and, if possible, to draw him from his
pr^ent position.’ Would the Erench chief, whose great
military genius was known in Europe, fall into such a snare ?
No wonder there were pale looks in the City at the news,
and doubt and gloom wheresoever it was known.
Tteee days after this first melancholy intelligence,
NEWS FROM CANADA
789
came the famous letters announcing that wonderful con-
summation of Fortune with which Mr. Wolfe’s wonderful
career ended. If no man is to be styled happy till his
death, what shall we say of this one ? His end was so
glorious, that I protest not even his mother nor his mistress
ought to have deplored it, or at any rate have wished
him alive again. I know it is a hero we speak of ; and
yet I vow I scarce know whether in the last act of his life
I admire the result of genius, invention, and daring, or
the boldness of a gambler winning surprising odds. Suppose
his ascent discovered a half-hour sooner, and his people,
as they would have been assuredly, beaten back ? Suppose
the Marquis of Montcalm not to quit his entrenched lines
to accept that strange challenge ? Suppose these points^ —
and none of them depend upon Mr. Wolfe at all — and
what becomes of the glory of the young hero, of the great
minister who discovered him, of the intoxicated nation
which rose up frantic with self-gratulation at the victory ?
I say, what fate is it that shapes our ends, or those of
nations ? In the many hazardous games which my
Lord Chatham played, he won this prc^igious one. And
as the greedy British hand seized the Canadas, it let fall
the United States out of its grasp.
To be sure this wisdom (Tapris coup is easy. We wonder
at this man’s rashness now the deed is done, and marvel
at the other’s fault. What generals some of us are upon
paper ; what repartees come to our mind when the talk
is finished ; and, the game over, how well w^e see how it
should have been played ! Writing of an event at a dis-
tance of thirty years, ’tis not difficult now to criticize
and find fault. But at the time when we first heard of
Wolfe’s glorious deeds upon the Plains of Abraham — of
that army marshalled in darkness and carried silently up
the midni ght river — of those rocks scaled by the intrepid
leader and his troops — of that miraculous security of the
enemy, of his present acceptance of our challenge to battle,
and of his defeat on the open plain by the sheer valour
of his conqueror — ^we were all intoxicated in England
by the news. The whole nation rose up and felt itself
the stronger for Wolfe’s victory. Not merely all men
engaged in the battle, but those at home who had condemned
its rashness, felt themselves heroes. Our spirit rose as
that of our enemy faltered. Friends embraced each other
790
THE VIRGINIANS
when they met. Coffee-houses and public places were
thronged with people eager to talk the news. Courtiers
rushed to the king and the great minister by whose wisdom
the campaign had been decreed. When he showed himself,
the people followed him \nth shouts and blessings. People
did not deplore the dead warrior, but admired his eutha-
nasia, Should James Wolfe’s friends weep and wear
mourning, because a chariot had come from the skies
to fetch him away ? Let them watch with wonder, and
see him departing, radiant ; rising above us superior.
To have a friend who had been near or about him was
to be distinguished. Every soldier w^ho fought with him
w^as a hero. In our fond little circle I know ’twas a distinc-
tion to be Harry’s brother. We should not in the least
wonder but that he, from his previous knowledge of the
place, had found the way up the heights which the British
army took, and pointed it out to his general. His promo-
tion would follow as a matter of course. Why, even our
Uncle Warrington wTote letters to bless Heaven and con-
gratulate me and himself upon the share Harry had had
in the glorious achievement. Our Aunt Beatrix opened
her house and received company upon the strength of the
victory. I became a hero from my likeness to my brother.
As for Parson Sampson, he preached such a sermon, that
his auditors {some of whom had been w^arned by his rever-
ence of the coming discourse) were with difficulty restrained
from huzzaing the orator, and were mobbed as they left
the chapel. ‘ Don’t talk to me, madam, about grief,’
says General Lambert to his wife, who, dear soul, was for
allowing herself some small indulgence of her favourite
sorrow on the day when Wolfe’s remains were gloriously
buried at Greenwich. ‘ If our boys could come by such
deaths as James’s, you know you wouldn’t prevent them
from being shot, but would scale the Abraham Heights
to see the thing done 1 Wouldst thou mind dying in the
arms of victory, Charley ? ’ he asks of the little hero from
the Chartreux. ‘ That I w^ouldn’t,’ says the little man ;
‘ and the doctor gave us a holiday, too.’
Our Harry’s promotion was ensured after his share in
the famous battle, and our aunt announced her intention
of purchasing a company for him.
791
CHAPTER LXXV
THE COUBSE OF TRUE LOVE
3 your father, young folks,
possessed the commonest share
of prudence, not only would
this chapter of his history never
have been wTitten, but you
yourselves would never have
appeared in the world to plague
him in a hundred ways : to
shout and laugh in the passages
when he wants to be quiet at
his books ; to w’ake him w'hen
he is dozing after dinner, as
a healthy country gentleman
should: to mislay his spectacles
for him, and steal away his
newspaper when he wants to
read it ; to ruin him with
tailors’ bills, mantua-makers’ bills, tutors’ bills, as you all
of you do : to break his rest of nights when you have the
impudence to fall ill, and when he would sleep undisturbed,
but that your silly mother wdll never be quiet for half
an hour ; and when Joan can’t sleep, what use, pray, is
there in Darby putting on his nightcap ? Every trifling
ailment that any one of you has had, has scared her so
that I protest I have never been tranquil ; and, were
I not the most long-sufiEering creature in the world, would
have liked to be rid of the whole pack of you. And now,
forsooth, that you have grown out of childhood, long
petticoats, chicken-pox, small-pox, whooping cough, scarlet
fever, and the other delectable accidents of puerile life,
what must that unconscionable woman propose but to
arrange the south rooms as a nursery for possible grand-
children, and set up the captain with a wife, and make
him marry early because we did I He is too fond, she
says, of Brookes’s and Goosetree’s when he is in London.
She has the perversity to hint that, though an entree to
Carlton House may be very pleasant, ’tis very dangerous
792
THE VIEGmiANS
for a young gentleman : and she would have Miles live
away from temptation, and sow his w’ild oats, and marry,
as we did. Marry ! my dear creature, we had no business
to marry at all ! By the laws of common prudence and
duty, I ought to have backed out of my little engagement
with Miss Theo (who w’ould have married somebody else),
and taken a rich wife. Your Uncle John w^as a parson
and couldn’t fight, poor Charley was a boy at school, and
your grandfather w’as too old a man to call me to account
with sword and pistol. I repeat there never was a more
foolish match in the world than ours, and our relations
were perfectly right in being angry with us. What are
relations made for, indeed, but to be angry and find fault ?
When Hester marries, do you mind, Master George, to
quarrel with her if she does not take a husband of your
selecting. When George has got his living, after being
senior wrangler and fellow of his college, Miss Hester, do
you toss up your little nose at the young lady he shall
fancy. As for you, my little Theo, I can’t part with you.*
You must not quit your old father ; for he likes you to
play Haydn to him, and peel his walnuts after dinner.
Whilst they had the blessing (forsooth !) of meeting, and
billing and cooing every day, the two young people, your
parents, went on in a fools’ paradise, little heeding the
world roimd about them, and all its tattling and meddling.
Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk, but
you know he loved dangling in Armida’s garden. Pray,
my Lady Armida, what did you mean by flinging your
spells over me in youth, so that not glory, not fashion,
not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in whose
way I fell, could keep me long from your apron-strings,
or out of reach of your dear simple prattle ? Pray, my
dear, what used we to say to each other during those
endless hours of meeting ? I never went to sleep after
dinner then. Which of us was so witty ? Was it I or
* On the blank leaf opposite this paragraph is written, in a large,
girlish hand :
‘ I never intend to go, — ^TsEonosiA.
‘ Nor 1 . — ^Hester.’
They both married, as I see by the note in the Family Bible,
Miss Theodosia Warrington to Joseph Clinton, son of the Rev.
Joseph Blake, and himself subsequently Master of Rodwell Regis
Grammar School ; and Miss Hester Mary, in 1804, to Captain
F. Haadyman, R.N.^En,
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE lU
you ? And how came it our conversations were so delight-
ful I remember that year I did not even care to go
and see my Lord Ferrers tried and hung, \^hen all the
world was running after his lordship. The King of Prussia’s
capital was taken ; had the Austrians and Russians been
encamped round the Tower there could scarce have been
more stir in London : yet Miss Theo and her young gentle-
man felt no inordinate emotion of pity or indignation.
Wliat to us was the fate of Leipzig or Berlin ? The truth
is, that dear old house in Dean Street w'as an enchanted
garden of delights. I have been as idle since, but never
as happy. Shall we order the post-chaise, my dear, leave
the chddren to keep house ; and drive up to London and
see H the old lodgings are still to be let ? And you shall
sit at your old place in the window, and wave a little
handkerchief as I walk up the street. Say what we did
was imprudent. Would we not do it over again ? My
good folks, if Venus had walked into the room and challenged
the apple, I was so infatuated, I would have given it your
mother. And had she had the choice, she would have
preferred her humble servant in a threadbare coat to my
Lord Clive with all his diamonds.
Once, to be sure, and for a brief time in that year, I had
a notion of going on the highway in order to be caught
and hung as my Lord Ferrers ; or of joining the King of
Prussia, and requesting some of his Majesty’s enemies to
knock my brains out ; or of enlisting for the India service,
and performing some desperate exploit which should end
in my bodily destruction. Ah, me ! that was indeed a
dreadful time I Your mother scarce dares speak of it now,
save in a whisper of terror ; or think of it — ^it was such
cruel pain. She w^as unhappy years after on the anniver-
sary of the day, until one of you was born on it. Suppose
we had been parted ; what had come to us ? What had
my lot been without her ? As I think of that possibility,
the whole w’orld is a blank. I do not say were we parted
now. It has pleased God to give us thirty years of union.
We have reached the autumn season. Our successors are
appointed and ready *, and that one of us who is first
called aw'ay, knows the survivor wuU follow ere long. But
we were actually parted in our youth ; and I tremble to
think what might have been, had not a dearest friend
brought us together.
794
THE viRGmAisrs
Unknown to myself, and very likely meaning only my
advantage, my relatives in England had chosen to VTite
to Madam Esmond in Virginia, and represent what they
were pleased to call the folly of the engagement I had
contracted. Every one of them sang the same song : and
I saw the letters, and burned the whole cursed pack of
them years afterwards when my mother showed them to
me at home in Virginia. Aunt Bernstein was forward
with her advice. A young person, with no wonderful good
looks, of no family, with no money; — ^was ever such an
imprudent connexion, and ought it not for dear George’s
sake to be broken off ? She had several eligible matches
in view for me. With my name and prospects, ’twas a
shame I should throw myself away on this young lady ;
her sister ought to interpose — ^and so forth.
My Lady Warrington must write, too, and in her peculiar
manner. Her ladyship’s letter was garnished with scripture
texts. She dress^ her worldliness out in phylacteries.
She pointed out how I was living in an unworthy society
of player-folks, and the like people, who she could not say
were absolutely without religion (Heaven forbid !), but who
were deplorably worldly. She would not say an artful
woman had irmeigled me for her daughter, having in vain
tried to captivate my younger brother. She was far from
saying any harm of the young woman I had selected ; but
at the least this was certain, Mss L. had no fortune or
expectations, and her parents might naturally be anxious
to compromise me. She had taken counsel, &c., &c. She
had sought for guidance where it was, &c. Feeling what
her dndy was, she had determined to speak. Sir Miles,
a man of excellent judgement in the affairs of this world
(though he knew and sought a better), fully agreed with
her in opinion, nay, desire her to write, and entreat her
sister to interfere, that the ill-advised match should not
take place.
And who besides must put a little finger into the pie
but the new Countess of Castlewood ? She wrote a majestic
letter to Madam Esmond, and stated, that having been
placed by Providence at the head of the Esmond family,
it was her duty to communicate with her kinswoman and
warn her to break off this marriage. I believe the three
women laid their heads together previously ; and, packet
after packet, sent off their warnings to the Virginian lady.
THE COUBSE OF TRUE LOVE
795
One raw April morning, as Corydon goes to pay his
usual duty to Phillis, he finds, not his charmer with her
dear smile as usual ready to welcome him, but Mrs. Lambert,
with very red eyes, and the general as pale as death.
‘ Read this, George Warrington ! ’ says he, as his wife’s
head drops betw-een her hands ; and he puts a letter before
me, of which I recognized the handwriting. I can hear
now the sobs of the good Aunt Lambert, and to this day
the noise of fire-irons stirring a fire in a room overhead
gives me a tremor. I heard such a noise that day in
the girls’ room where the sisters were together. Poor
gentle child ! Poor Theo !
‘ What can I do after this, George, my poor boy ? ’ asks
the general, pacing the room with desperation in his
face.
I did not quite read the whole of Madam Esmond’s
letter, for a kind of sickness and faintness came over me ;
but I fear I could say some of it now by heart. Its style
was good, and its actual words temperate enough, though
they only implied that Mr. and Mrs. Lambert had inveigled
me into the marriage ; that they knew such a union was
unworthy of me ; that (as Madam E. understood) they
had desired a similar union for her younger son, which
project, not unluckily for him, perhaps, was given up when
it was found that Mr. Henry Warrington w^as not the
inheritor of the Virginian property. If Mr. Lambert was
a man of spirit and honour, as he was represented to be.
Madam Esmond scarcely supposed that, after her repre-
sentations, he w^ould persist in desiring this match. She
would not lay commands upon her son, whose temper she
knew ; but for the sake of Miss Lambert’s own reputation
and comfort, she urged that the dissolution of the engage-
ment should come from her family, and not from the just
unwillingness of Rachel Esmond Warrington of Virginia.
‘ God help us, George I ’ the general said, ‘ and give us
aU strength to bear this grief, and these charges which it
has pleased your mother to bring ! They are hard, but they
don’t matter now. What is of most importance is to
spare as much sorrow as we can to my poor girl. I know
you love her so well, that you will help me and her mother
to make the blow as tolerable as we may to that poor
gentle heart. Since she was born she has never given pain
to a soul alive, and ’tis cruel that she should be made to
796
THE VIRGINIANS
suffer.* And as he spoke he passed liis hand across his
dry eyes.
It was my fault, Martin ! It was my fault ! ’ weeps
the poor mother.
‘Your mother spoke us fair, and gave her promise,’
said the father.
‘ And do you think I will withdraw mine ? ’ cried I ; and
protested, with a thousand frantic vows, what they knew
full well, ‘ that I was bound to Theo before Heaven, and
that nothing should part me from her.’
‘ She herself will demand the parting. She is a good
girl, God help me 1 and a dutiful. She wffl not have her
father and mother called schemers, and treated with scorn.
Your mother knew not, very likely, what she was doing,
but ’tis done. You may see the child, and she will tell
you as much. Is Theo dres^, Molly ? I brought the
letter home from my office last evening after you were
gone. The women have had a bad night. She knew at
once by my face that there was bad new^s from America.
She read the letter quite firmly. She said she w^ould like
to see you and say good-bye. Of course, George, you will
give me your word of honour not to try and see her after-
wards. As soon as my business wffi let me w^e will get
away from Ihis, but mother and I think w’e are best all
together. ’Tis you, perhaps, had best go. But give me
your w'ord, at any rate, that you will not try and see her.
We must spare her pain, sir ! We must spare her pain ! ’
And the good man sat down in such deep anguish himself
that I, who was not yet under the fuU pressure of my own
grief, actually felt his, and pitied it. It could not be that
the dear lips I had kissed yesterday were to speak to me
only once more. We were all here together ; loving each
other, sitting in the room where w^e met every day ; my
drawing on the table by her little work-box ; she was in
the chamber upstairs ; she must come dowm presently.
Who is this opens the door ? I see her sweet face. It
was like our little Mary’s when we thought she would die
of the fever. There was even a smile upon her lips. She
comes up and kisses me. ‘ Good-bye, dear George ! * she
says. Great Heaven ! An old man sitting in this room, —
with my wife’s work-box opposite, and she but five minutes
away, my eyes grow so dim and full that I can’t see the
book before me. I am tliree-and-twenty years old again.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
797
I go through every stage of that agony, I once had it
sitting in my own post-chaise, with my wife actually by
my side. "V^o dared to sully her sweet love with sus-
picion ? Who had a right to stab such a soft bosom ?
Don’t you see my ladjes getting their knives ready, and
the poor child baring it ? My wife comes in. She has
been serving out tea or tobacco to some of her pensioners.
‘ What is it makes you look so angry, papa ? ’ she says.
" My love ! ’ I say, ' it is the thirteenth of April.’ A pang
of pain shoots across her face, followed by a tender smile.
She has undergone the martyrdom, and in the midst of
the pang comes a halo of forgiveness. I can’t forgive;
not until my days of dotage come, and I cease remembering
anything. ‘ Hal w^ill be home for Easter ; he will bring
two or three of his friends with him from Cambridge,’ she
says. And straightway she falls to devising schemes for
amusing the boys. When is she ever occupied, but with
plans for making others happy ?
A gentleman sitting in spectacles before an old ledger,
and writing down pitiful remembrances of his own con-
dition, is a quaint and ridiculous object. My corns hurt
me, I know, but I suspect my neighbour’s shoes pinch
him too. I am not going to howl much over my own
grief, or enlarge at any great length on this one. Many
another man, I dare say, has had the light of his day
suddenly put out, the joy of his life extinguished, and has
been left to darlmess and vague torture. I have a book
I tried to read at this time of grief — ^Howel’s Letters — ^and
when I come to the part about Prince Charles in Spain,
up starts the wrhole tragedy alive again. I went to Bright-
helmstone, and there, at the inn, had a room facing the
east, and saw the sun get up ever so many mornings,
after blank nights of wakefulness, and smoked my pipe of
Virginia in his face. When I am in that place by chance,
and see the sun rising now, I shake my fist at him, thinking,
0 orient Phoebus, w’^hat horrible grief and savage wTath
have you not seen me suffer 1 Though my wife is mine
ever so long, I say I am angry just the same. Who dared,
1 want to know’, to make us suffer so ? I w-as forbidden
to see her. I kept my promise, and remained away from
the house : that is, after that horrible meeting and parting.
But at night I w’ould go and look at her window^ and
w^atch the lamp burning there ; I w^ould go to the Chartreux
798
THE VIEGIKIANS
(where I knew another boy), and call for her brother, and
gorge him with cakes and half-crowns. I would meanly
have her elder brother to dine, and almost kiss him when
he went away. I used to breakfast at a coffee-house in
Whitehall, in order to see Lambert go to his office ; and
we would salute each other sadly, and pass on without
speaking. Why did not the women come out ? They
never did. They were practising on her, and persuading
her to try and forget me. Oh, the weary, weary days !
Oh, the maddening time ! At last a doctor’s chariot used
to draw up before the general’s house every day. Was
she ill ? I fear I was rather glad she was ill. My own
suffering was so infernal, that I greedily wanted her to
share my pain. And would she not ? What grief of mine
has it not felt, that gentle and most compassionate of
hearts? What pain would it not suffer to spare mine
a pang ?
I sought that doctor out. I had an interview with him.
I told my story, and laid bare my heart to him, with an
outburst of passionate sincerity, which won his sympathy.
My confession enabled him to xmderstand his young patient’s
malady ; for which his drugs had no remedy or anodyne.
I had promised not to see her, or to go to her : I had
kept my promise. I had promised to leave London : I had
gone away. Twice, thrice I went back and told my
sufferings to him. He would take my fee now and again,
and always receive me kindly, and let me speak. Ah, how
I clung to him ! I suspect he must have been unhappy
once in his own life, he knew so well and gently how to
succour the miserable.
He did not tell me how dangerously, though he did not
disguise from me how gravely and seriously, my dearest
girl had been ill. I told him everything — ^that I would
marry her, and brave every chance and danger ; that,
without her, I was a man utterly wrecked and ruined,
and cared not what became of me. My mother had once
consented, and had now chosen to withdraw her consent,
when the tie between us had been, as I held, drawn so
closely together, as to be paramount to all filial duty.
‘ I think, sir, if your mother heard you, and saw Miss
Lambert, she would relent,’ said the doctor. Who was
my mother to hold me in bondage ; to claim a right of
misery over me ; and to take this angel out of my arms ?
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
799
‘ He could not/ he said, ‘ be a message-carrier between
young ladies who were pining and young lovers on whom
the sweetheart’s gates were shut : but so much he w^ould
venture to say that he had seen me, and was prescribing
for me, too/ Yes, he must have been unhappy once him-
self. I saw him, you may be sure, on the very day when
he had kept his promise to me. He said she seemed to
be comforted by hearing news of me.
" She bears her suffering with an angelical sweetness.
I prescribe Jesuits’ bark, which she takes ; but I am not
sure the hearing of you has not done more good than the
medicine.’ The women owned afterwards that they had
never told the general of the doctor’s new patient.
I know not w^hat wild expressions of gratitude I poured
out to the good doctor for the comfort he brought me.
His treatment was curing two unhappy sick persons. ’Twas
but a drop of water, to be sure ; but then a drop of w’ater
to a man raging in torment. I loved the ground he trod
upon, blessed the hand that took mine, and had felt her
pulse. I had a ring with a pretty cameo head of a Her-
cules on it. ’Twas too small for his finger, nor did the
good old man wear such ornaments. I made him hang
it to his watch-chain, in hopes that she might see it, and
recognize that the token came from me. How I fastened
upon Spencer at this time (my friend of the Temple who
also had an unfortunate love-match), and walked with him
from my apartments to the Temple, and he back with me
to Bedford Gardens, and our talk was for ever about our
women ! I dare say I told everybody my grief. My good
landlady and Betty the housemaid pitied me. My son
Miles, who, for a wonder, has been reading in my MS.,
says, ‘ By Jove, sir, I didn’t know you and my mother
were took in this kind of way. The year I joined, I was
hit very bad myself. An infernal little jilt that threw me
over for Sir Craven Oaks of our regiment. I thought
I should have gone crazy.’ And he gives a melancholy
whistle, and walks away.
The general had to leave London presently on one of
his military inspections, as the doctor casually told me ;
but, having given my word that I would not seek to present
myself at his house, I kept it, availing myself, however,
as you may be sure, of the good physician’s leave to visit
him, and have news of his dear patient. His accounts of
BOO
THE VIRGINIANS
her were far from encouraging. ‘ She does not rally,’ he
said. " We must get her back to Kent again, or to the
sea.’ I did not know then that the poor chOd had begged
and prayed so piteously not to be moved, that her parents,
divining, perhaps, the reason of her desire to linger in
London, and feeling that it might be dangerous not to
humour her, had yielded to her entreaty, and consented
to remain in town.
At last one morning I came, pretty much as usual, and
took my place in my doctor’s front parlour, whence his
patients were called in their turn to his consulting-room.
Here I remained, looking heedlessly over the books on the
table and taking no notice of any person in the room,
which speedily emptied itself of all, save me and one lady
who sat with her veil down. I used to stay till the last,
for Osborn, the doctor’s man, knew my business, and that
it w’as not my own illness I came for.
When the room w^as empty of all save me and the lady,
she puts out two little hands, cries in a voice w’hich made
me start, ‘ Don’t you know me, George ? ’ And the next
minute I have my arms round her, and kissed her as
heartily as ever I kissed in my life, and gave w^ay to a
passionate oul^ush of emotion the most refreshing, for my
parched soul had been in rage and torture for six w^eeks
past, and this was a glimpse of heaven.
Who was it, children ? You think it was your mother
whom the doctor had brought to me ? No. It was Hetty.
801
CHAPTER LXXVI
INFORMS ITS HOW ^lE. WARRINGTON JUMPED INTO A LANDAU
HE emotion at the first surprise
and greeting over, the little
maiden began at once.
‘ So you are come at last to
ask after Theo, and you feel
very sorry that your neglect has
made her so ill ? For six weeks
she has been unw'ell, and you
have never asked a word about
her! Very kind of you, Mr.
George, I’m sure 1 ’
‘ Kind ! ’ gasps out Mr. War-
rington.
‘I suppose you call it kind
to be with her every day and
all day for a year, and then to
leave her without a w’-ord.’
‘ My dear, you know my promise to your father ? ’
I reply.
‘ Promise ! ’ says Miss Hetty, shrugging her shoulders.
‘ A very fine promise, indeed, to make my darling ill, and
then suddenly, one fine day, to say, “ Good-bye, Theo,”
and walk away for ever. I suppose gentlemen make these
promises, because they wish to keep ’em. I wouldn’t
trifle with a poor child’s heart, and leave her afterwards,
if I were a man. What has she ever done to you, but be
a fool and too fond of you ? Pray, sir, by w^hat right do
ou take her aw^ay from all of us, and then desert her,
ecause an old w^oman in America don’t approve of her ?
She was happy with us before you came. She loved her
sister — ^there never was such a sister — ^until she saw you.
And now, because your mamma thinks her young gentle-
man might do better, you must leave her forsooth ! ’
‘ Great powers, child ! ’ I cried, exasperated at this wTong-
headedness. ‘ Was it I that drew back ? Is it not I that
am forbidden your house ; and did not your father require,
on my honour, that I should not see her ? ’
VIRGINIANS B d
THE VIRGINIANS
m2
‘ Honour ! And you are the men who pretend to be our
superiors ; and it is we who are to respect you and admire
you ! I declare, George Warrington, you ought to go back
to your schoolroom in Virginia again ; have your black
nui^ to tuck you up in bed, and ask leave from your
mamma when you might walk out. O George ! I little
thought that my sister \ras giving her heart away to a man
who hadn’t the spirit to stand by her ; but, at the first
difficulty, left her ! When Doctor Heberden said he was
attending you, I determined to come and see you, and
you do look very ill, that I am glad to see ; and I suppose
it’s your mother you are frightened of. But I shan’t teU
Theo that you are untvell. She hasn’t left off caring for
you. She can’t walk out of a room, break her solemn
engs^ements, and go into the world the next day as if
nothing had happened ! That is left for men, our superiors
in courage and wisdom ; and to desert an angel — ^yes, an
angel ten thousand times too good for you ; an angel who
us5i to love me till she saw you, and who was the blessing
of life and of all of us — ^is vrhat you call honour ? Don’t
tell me, sir ! I despise you all I You are our betters, are
you ? We are to w^orship and vrait on you, I suppose ?
1 don’t care about your wit, and your tragedies, and your
verses ; and I think they are often very stupid. I won’t
sit up at nights copying your manuscripts, nor watch hour
after hour at a window wasting my time and neglecting
everybody because I want to see your worship walk down
the street with your hat cocked 1 If you are going away,
and welcome, give me back my sister, I say ! Give me
back my darling of old days, who loved every one of us
till she saw you. And you leave her because your mamma
thinks she can find somebody richer for you ! 0 you
brave gentleman I Go and marry the person your mother
chooses, and let my dear die here deserted 1 ’
‘ Great Heavens, Hetty ! ’ I cry, amazed at the logic of
the little woman. ‘ Is it I who wish to leave your sister ?
Did I not offer to keep my promise, and was it not your
father who refused me, and made me promise never to
try and see her again ? What have I but my word, and
my honour ? ’
‘ Honour, indeed ! You keep your word to him, and
you break it to her ! Pretty honour ! If I were a man,
I would soon let you know w’hat I thought of your honour !
HOW GEORGE JUMPED INTO A LANDAU S03
Only I forgot — ^you are bound to keep the peace and
mustn’t. . . . Oh, George, George ! Don’t you see the
grief I am in ? I am distracted, and scarce know what
I say. You must not leave my darling. They don’t know
it at home. They don’t thirds so : but I know her best
of all, and she will die if you leave her. Say you won’t ?
Have pity upon me, Mr. Warrington, and give me my
dearest back ! ’ Thus the warm-hearted, distracted creature
ran from anger to entreaty, from scorn to tears. Was my
little doctor right in thus speaking of the case of her dear
patient ? Was there no other remedy than that which
Hetty cried for ? Have not others felt the same cruel pain
of amputation, undergone the same exhaustion and fever
afterwards, lain hopeless of anything save death, and yet
recovered after all, and limped through life subsequently ?
Why, but that love is selfish, and does not heed other
people’s griefs and passions, or that ours was so intense
and special that we deemed no other lovers could suffer
like ourselves ; — ^here in the passionate young pleader for
her sister, we might have shown an instance, that a fond
heart could be stricken with the love-malady and silently
suffer it, live under it, recover from it. What had happened
in Hetty’s ovm case ? Her sister and I, in our easy triumph
and fond confidential prattle, had many a time talked over
that matter, and, egotists as we were, perhaps dravm
a secret zest and security out of her less fortunate
attachment, ’Twas like sitting by the fireside, and hearing
the winter howling without ; ’twas like walking by the
mari magno^ and seeing the ship tossing at sea. We clung
to each other only the more closely, and, wrapped in our
own happiness, viewed others’ misfortunes with complacent
pity. Ee the truth as it may. Grant that we might have
been sundered, and after a while survived the separation, so
much my sceptical old age may be disposed to admit. Yet,
at that time, I was eager enough to share my ardent little
Hetty’s terrors and apprehensions, and willingly chose to
believe that the life dearest to me in the world would be
sacrificed if separated from mine. Was I wrong ? I would
not say as much now. I may doubt about myself (or
not doubt, I know), but of her never ; and Hetty found
in me quite a willing sharer in her alarms and terrors.
I was for imparting some of these to our doctor ; but the
good gentleman shut my mouth. ‘ Hush,’ says he, with
804
THE VIRGINIANS
a comical look of fright. ‘ I must hear none of this. If
two people who happen to know each other, chance to meet
and talk in my patients’ room, I cannot help myself ; but
as for match-making and love-making, I am your humble
servant ! What will the general do when he comes back to
town ? He will have me behind Montagu House, as sure
as I am a live doctor, and alive I wish to remain, my
good sir I ’ And he skips into his carriage, and leaves me
there meditating. ‘ And you and Miss Hetty must have
no meetings here again, mind you that,’ he had said
previously.
Oh, no ! Of course we would have none ! We are gentle-
men of honour, and so forth, and our word is our word.
Besides, to have seen Hetty, was not that an inestimable
boon, and would we not be for ever grateful ? I am so
refreshed with that dro'p of water I have had, that I think
I can hold out for ever so long a time now. I walk awUy
.with Hetty to Soho, and never once thought of arranging
a new meeting with her. But the little emissary w^as
more thoughtful, and she asks me whether I go to the
Museum now to read ? And I say, ‘ Oh, yes, sometimes,
my dear ; but I am too wretched for reading now ; I can-
not see what is on the paper. I do not care about my
books. Even Pocahontas is wearisome to me. I . .
I might have continued ever so much farther, when,
^ Nonsense ! ’ she says, stamping her little foot. ' Why,
I declare, George, you are more stupid than Harry ! ’
‘ How do you mean, my dear child ? ’ I ask.
* When do you go ? You go away at three o’clock.
You strike across on the road to Tottenham Court. You
walk through the village, and return by the Green Lane
that leads back towards the new hospital. You know you
do I If you walk for a week there, it can’t do you any
harm. Good morning, sir ! You’ll please not follow me
any further.’ And she drops me a curtsy, and walks away
with a veil over her face.
That Green Lane, which lay to the north of the new
hospital, is built all over with houses now. In my time,
when good old George II was yet king, ’twas a shabby
rural outlet of London ; so dangerous, that the city folks
who went to their villas and junketing houses at Hamp-
stead and the outlying villages, would return in parties of
nights, and escorted hj waiters with lanthorns, to defend
HOW GEORGE JUMPED INTO A LANDAU
Si)l
them from the footpads who prowled about the town out-
skirts. Hampstead and Highgate churches, each crowning
its hill, filled up the background of the view which you
saw as you turned your back to London ; and one, two,
three days Mr. George Warrington had the pleasure of
looking upon this landscape, and walking back in the direc-
tion of the new hospital. Along the lane were sundry
small houses of entertainment ; and I remember at one
place, where they sold cakes and beer, at the sign of the
‘ Protestant Hero a decent woman smiling at me on the
third or fourth day, and curtsying in her clean apron, as
she says, ‘ It appears the lady don’t come, sir ! Your
honour had best step in, and take a can of my cool
beer.’
At length, as I am coming back through Tottenham
Road, on the 25th of May — 0 day to be marked with the
whitest stone ! — a little way beyond Mr. Whitfield’s Taber-
nacle, I see a landau before me, and on the box-seat by
the driver is my young friend Charley, who waves his hat
to me, and calls out, ‘ George I George ! ’ I ran up to
the carriage, my knees knocking together so that I thought
I should fall by the wheel ; and inside I see Hetty, and
by her my dearest Theo, propped with a pillow. How
thin the little hand had become since last it was laid in
mine ! The cheeks were flushed and wasted, the eyes
strangely bright, and the thrill of the voice when she
spoke a word or two, smote me with a pang, I know not
of grief or joy was it, so intimately were they blended.
‘ I am taking her an airing to Hampstead,’ says Hetty,
demurely. ‘ The doctor says the air will do her good.’
‘ I have been ill, but I am better now, George,’ says
Theo. There came a great burst of music from the people
in the chapel hard by, as she was speaking. I held her
hand in mine. Her eyes were looking into mine once more.
It seemed as if we had never been parted.
I can never forget the tune of that psalm. I have
heard it all through my life. My wife has touched it on
her harpsichord, and her little ones have warbled it. Now,
do you understand, young people, why I love it so ?
Because ’twas the music played at our amoris redinte-
gration Because it sang hope to me, at the period of my
existence the most miserable. Yes, the most miserable :
for that dreary confinement of Duquesne had its tendernesses
808
THE VIRGINIANS
and kindly associations connected with it ; and many
a time in after-days I have thought with fondness of the
poor Biche and my tipsy jailer ; and the reveille© of the
forest birds and the military music of my prison.
Master Charley looks down from his box-seat upon his
sister and me engaged in beatific contemplation, and Hetty
listening too, to the music. ‘ I think I should like to go
and hear it. And that famous Mr. Whitfield, perhaps he
is going to preach this very day 1 Come in with me,
Charley — ^and George can drive for half an hour with dear
Theo towards Hampstead and back.’
Charley did not seem to have any very strong desire
for witnessing the devotional exercises of good Mr. Whit-
field and his congregation, and proposed that George
Warrington shoidd take Hetty in ; but Het was not to
be denied. ‘ I will never help you in another exercise as
long as you live, sir,’ cries Miss Hetty, ‘ if you don’t come
on,’ — ^while the youth clambered down from his box-seat,
and they entered the temple together.
Can any moralist, bearing my previous promises in mind,
excuse me for jumping into the carriage and sitting down
once more by my dearest Theo ? Suppose I - did break
’em ? Will he blame me much ? Reverend sir, you are
welcome. I broke my promise ; and if you would not do
as much, good friend, you are welcome to your virtue.
Not that I for a moment suspect my own children will
ever be so bold as to think of having hearts of their own,
and bestowing them according to their liking. No, my
young people, you will let papa choose for you ; be hungry
when he tells you ; be thirsty when he orders ; and settle
your children’s marriages afterwards.
And now of course you are anxious to hear what took
place when papa jumped into the landau by the side of
poor little mamma, propped up by her pillows. ‘I am
come to your part of the story, my dear,’ says I, looking
over to my wife as she is plying her needles.
‘ To what, pray ? ’ says my lady. ‘ You should skip all
that part, and come to the grand battles, and your heroic
defence of ’
‘ Of Fort Riddlededee in the year 1778, when I pulled
off Mr. Washington’s epaulet, gouged General Gates’s eye,
cut ofi Charles Lee’s head, and pasted it on again ! ’
‘ Let us hear all about the fighting,’ say the boys.
HOW GEORGE JUMPED INTO A LANDAU
811
Even the captain condescends to own he will listen to any
military details, though only from a mihtia officer.
^ Eair and softly, young people ! Everything in its turn.
I am not yet arrived at the war. I am offiy a young
gentleman, just stepping into a landau, by the side of
a young lady whom I promised to avoid. I am taking
her hand, which, after a little ado, she leaves in mine.
Do you remember how hot it was, the little thing, how
it trembled, and how it throbbed and jumped a hundred
and twenty in a minute ? And as we trot on towards
Hampstead, I address Miss Lambert in the following
terms ’
^ Ah, ah, ah ! ’ say the girls in a chorus with mademoiselle,
their French governess, who cries, ^ Nous ecoutons main-
tenant. La 'parole est d votbs, Monsieur le Chevalier ! *
Here we have them all in a circle. Mamma is at her
side of the fire, papa at his ; Mademoiselle Eleonore, at
whom the captain looks rather sweetly (eyes off, captain !) ;
the two girls, listening like — ^like nymphos discentes to
Apollo, let us say; and John and Tummas (with obtuse
ears), who are bringing in the tea-trays and urns.
‘ Very good,’ says the squire, pulhng out the MS., and
waving it before him. ‘ We are going to teU your mother’s
secrets and mine.’
"I am sure you may, papa,’ cries the house matron.
‘ There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’ And a blush rises
over her kind face.
®But before I begin, young folks, permit me two or
three questions.’
‘‘ Allans^ toujours des questions ! ’ says mademoiselle, with
a shrug of her pretty shoulders. (Florae has recommended
her to us, and I suspect the little chevalier has himself
an eye upon this pretty Mademoiselle de Blois.)
To the questions, then.
812
THE VIHGINIANS
CHAPTER LXXVII
Ai^D HOW EVEBYBODY GOT OUT AGAIN
YOU, Captain Miles War-
rington, have the honour of
winning the good graces of
a lady — of ever so many
ladies — of the Duchess of
Devonshire, let us say, of
Mrs. Crew, of Mrs. Fitz-
herbert, of the Queen of
Prussia, of the Goddess
Venus, of Mademoiselle
Hillisberg of the Opera —
never mind of whom, in
fine. If you win a lady’s
good graces, do you always
go to the mess and tell
what happened ? ’
‘ Not such a fool, squire ! ’
says the captain, surveying his side-curl in the glass.
‘ Have you, Miss Theo, told your mother every word
you said to Mr. Joe Blake, Junior, in the shrubbery this
morning ? ’
‘ Joe Blake, indeed ! ’ cries Theo Junior.
‘ And you, mademoiselle ? That scented billet wiiich
came to you under Sir Thomas’s frank, have you told us
all the letter contains ? Look how she blushes ! As red
as the curtain, on my word ! No, mademoiselle, we all
have our secrets ’ (says the squire, here making his best
French bow^). ‘ No, Theo, there was nothing in the shrub-
bery-only nuts, my child ! No, Miles, my son, we don’t
tell all, even to the most indulgent of fathers — and, if
I tell what happened in a landau on the Hampstead Road,
on the 25th of May, 1760, may the Chevalier Ruspini pull
out every tooth in my head ! ’
‘ Pray tell, papa ! ’ cries mamma ; ‘ or, as Jobson, who
drove us, is in your service now, perhaps you will have
him in from the stables 1 I insist upon your telling ! ’
HOW EVERYBODY GOT OUT OF THE LANDAU 813
‘ Wliat is, then, this mystery ? ’ asks mademoiselle, in
her pretty French accent, of my wife.
" Eh, ma fille ! ’ whispers the lady. ‘ Tliou wouldst ask
me what I said ? I said “ Yes ! ” — behold all I said.’
And so ’tis my wife has peached, and not I ; and this w^as
the sum of our conversation, as the carriage, all too smftly
as I thought, galloped towards Hampstead, and flew back
again. Theo had not agreed to fly in the face of her
honoured parents — ^no such thing. But we would marry
no other person ; no, not if we lived to be as old as
Methuselah ; no, not the Prince of Wales himself would
she take. Her heart she had given away with her papa’s
consent — ^nay, order — it was not hers to resume. So kind
a father must relent one of these days ; and, if George
would keep his promise — were it now, or were it in twenty
years, or were it in another world, she knew she should
never break hers.
Hetty’s face beamed with delight when, my little inter-
view over, she saw Theo’s countenance wearing a sweet
tranquillity. All the doctor’s medicine has not done her
so much good, the fond sister said. The girls went home
after their act of disobedience. I gave up the place which
I had held during a brief period of happiness by my dear
invalid’s side. Hetty skipped back into her seat, and
Charley on to his box. He told me, in after-days, that
it was a very dull, stupid sermon lie had heard. The
little chap was too orthodox to love Dissenting preachers’
sermons.
Hetty was not the only one of the family who remarked
her sister’s altered countenance and improved spirits. I am
told that on the girls’ return home, their mother embraced
both of them, especially the invalid, with more than com-
mon ardour of affection. ‘ There was nothing like a country
ride,’ Aunt Lambert said, ‘ for doing her dear Theo good.
She had been on the road to Hampstead, had she ? She
must have another ride to-morrow. Heaven be blessed,
my Lord Wrotham’s horses were at their orders three or
four times a w’^eek, and the sweet child might have the
advantage of them ! ’ As for the idea that Mr. Warrington
might have happened to meet the children on their drive.
Aunt Lambert never once entertained it, — at least spoke
of it. I leave anybody who is interested in the matter
to guess whether Mrs. Lambert could by any possibility
814
THE VIEGIOTANS
have supposed that her daughter and her sweetheart could
ever have come together again. Do women help each other
in love-perplexities ? Do women scheme, intrigue, make
little plans, tell little fibs, provide little amorous oppor-
tunities, hang up the rope-ladder, coax, wheedle, mystify
the guardian or Abigail, and turn their attention away
while Strephon and Chloe are billing and cooing in the
tvilight, or whisking ofi in the post-chaise to Gretna Green ?
My dear young folks, some people there are of this nature ;
and some kind souls who have loved tenderly and truly
in their own time, continue ever after to be kindly and
tenderly disposed towards their young successors, when
they begin to play the same pretty game.
Miss Prim doesn’t. If she hears of two young persons
attached to each other, it is to snarl at them for fools, or
to imagine of them all conceivable evil. Because she has
a humpback herself, she is for biting everybody else’s.
I believe if she saw a pair of turtles cooing in a wood,
she would turn her eyes down, or fling a stone to frighten
them ; but I am speaking, you see, young ladies, of your
grandmother, Aunt Lambert, who was one great syllabub
of human kindness ; and, besides, about the aSair at present
under discussion, how am I ever to tell whether she knew
anything regarding it or not ?
So, all she says to Theo on her return home, is, ‘ My
child, the country air has done you all the good in the
world, and I hope you will take another drive to-morrow,
and another, and another, and so on.’
‘Don’t you think, papa, the ride has done the child
most wonderful good, and must not she be made to go
out in the air ? ’ Aunt Lambert asks of the general, when
he comes in for supper.
‘ Yes, sure, if a coach-and-six will do his little Theo
good, she shall have it,’ Lambert says, ‘ or he will drag
the landau up Hampstead Hill himself, if there are no
horses ; ’ and so the good man would have spent freely,
his guineas, or his breath, or his blood, to give his child
pleasure. He was charmed at his girl’s altered coun-
tenance ; she picked a bit of chicken with appetite : she
drank a little negus, which he made for her : indeed it
did seem to be better than the kind doctor’s best medicine,
which hitherto, God wot, had been of little benefit. Mamma
was gracious and happy. Hetty was radiant and rident.
HOW EVERYBODY GOT OUT OE THE LANDAU 815
It was qxiite like an evening at home at Oakhurst. Never
for months past, never since that fatal, cruel day, that
no one spoke of, had they spent an evening so delightful.
But, if the other women chose to coax and cajole the
good, simple father, Theo herself was too honest to continue
for long even that sweet and fond delusion. When, for
the third or fourth time, he comes back to the delightful
theme of his daughter’s improved health, and asks, ‘ What
has done it ? Is it the country air ? is it the Jesuit’s
bark ? is it the new medicine ? ’
‘ Can’t you think, dear, what it is ? ’ she says, laying
a hand upon her father’s, with a tremor in her voice,
perhaps, but eyes that are quite open and bright.
‘ And what is it, my child ? ’ asks the general.
‘ It is because I have seen him again, papa ! ’ she says.
The other two women turned pale, and Theo’s heart
too begins to palpitate, and her cheek to whiten, as she
continues to look in her father’s scared face.
‘ It was not wrong to see him,’ she continues, more
quickly ; ‘ it would have been wrong not to tell you.’
‘ Great God 1 ’ groans the father, drawing his hand back,
and with such a dreadful grief in his countenance, that
Hetty runs to her almost swooning sister, clasps her to
her heart, and cries out, rapidly, ‘ Theo knew nothing of
it, sir 1 It was my doing — ^it was all my doing ! ’
Theo lies on her sister’s neck, and kisses it twenty, jfifty
times.
‘ Women, women ! are you playing with my honour ? ’
cries the father, bursting out with a fierce exclamation.
Aunt Lambert sobs, wildly, ' Martin 1 Martin I ’ ‘ Don’t
say a word to her ! ’ again calls out Hetty, and falls back
herself staggering towards the wall, for Theo has fainted
on her shoulder.
I was taking my breakfast next morning, with what
appetite I might, when my door opens, and my faithful
black announces, ‘ General Lambert.’ At once I saw, by
the general’s face, that the yesterday’s transaction was
known to him. ‘ Your accomplices did not confess,’ the
general said, as soon as my servant had left us, ‘ but sided
with you against their father — a proof how desirable clan-
destine meetings are. It was from Theo herself I heard
that she had seen you.’
‘ Accomplices, sir I ’ I said (perhaps not unwilling to
m
THE VIRGINIANS
turn the conversation from the real point at issue). ‘ You
know how^ fondly and dutifully your young people regard
their father. If they side against you in this instance, it
must be because justice is against you. A man like you
is not going to set up sic voh sic jubeo as the sole law in
his family ! ’
‘ Psha ! George,’ cries the general. ‘ Por though we are
parted, God forbid I should desire that we should cease
to love each other. I had your promise that you would
not seek to see her.’
‘ Nor did I go to her, sir,’ I said, turning red, no doubt ;
for though this was truth, I own it was untrue.
‘ You mean she was brought to you ? ’ says Theo’s father,
in great agitation. ‘ Is it behind Hester’s petticoat that
you will shelter yourself ? What a fine defence for a
gentleman ! ’
‘Well, I won’t screen myself behind the poor child,’
I replied- ‘ To speak as I did was to make an attempt
at evasion, and I am ill accustomed to dissemble. I did
not infringe the letter of my agreement, but I acted against
the spirit of it. From this moment I annul it altogether.’
‘ You break your word given to me ! ’ cries Mr. Lambert.
‘ I recall a hasty promise made on a sudden at a moment
of extreme excitement and perturbation. No man can be
for ever bound by words uttered at such a time ; and,
what is more, no man of honour or humanity, Mr. Lambert,
would try to bind him.’
‘ Dishonour to me / sir,’ exclaims the general.
‘ Yes, if the phrase is to be shuttlecocked between us ! ’
I answered, hotly. ‘ There can be no question about
love, or mutual regard, or difference of age, when that
word is used : and were you my own father — and I love
you better than a father, Uncle Lambert, — I would not
bear it ! What have I done ? I have seen the woman
whom I consider my wife before God and man, and if she
calls me I will see her again. If she comes to me, here
is my home for her, and the half of the little I have. ’Tis
you, who have no right, having made me the gift, to resume
it. Because my mother taunts you unjustly, are you to
visit Mrs. Esmond’s wrong upon this tender, innocent
creature ? You profess to love your daughter, and you
can’t bear a little wounded pride for her sake. Better
she should perish away in misery, than an old woman in
HOW EVERYBODY GOT OUT OF THE LANDAU 817
Virginia should say that Mr. Lambert had schemed to
marry one of his daughters. Say that to satisfy what you
call honour and I call selfishness, we part, we break our
hearts wellnigh, we rally, we try to forget each other, we
marry elsewhere ? Can any man be to my dear as I have
been ? God forbid ! Can any woman be to me what she
is ? You shall marry her to the Prince of Wales to-morrow,
and it is a cowardice and treason. How can we, how can
you, undo the promises we have made to each other before
Heaven ? You may part us : and she will die as surely
as if she were Jephthah’s daughter. Have you made any
vow to Heaven to compass her murder ? Kill her if you
conceive your promise so binds you : but this I swear,
that I am glad you have come, so that I may here formally
recall a hasty pledge which I gave, and that, call me when
she will, I will come to her ! ’
No doubt this speech was made with the flurry and
agitation belonging to Mr. Warrington’s youth, and with
the firm conviction that death would infallibly carry off
one or both of the parties, in case their worldly separation
was inevitably decreed. Who does not believe his first
passion eternal ? Having watched the world since and
seen the rise, progress, and — alas, that I must say it ! —
decay of other amours, I may smile now as I think of my
own youthful errors and ardours ; but, if it be a superstition,
I had rather hold it ; I had rather think that neither of us
could have lived with any other mate, and that, of all its
innumerable creatures, Heaven decreed these special two
should be joined together.
‘ We must come, then, to what I had fain have spared
myself,’ says the general, in reply to my outbreak ; to an
unfriendly separation. When I meet you, Mr. Warrington,
I must Imow you no more. I must order — and they will
not do other than obey me — my family and children not to
recognize you when they see you, since you will not recog-
nize in your intercourse with me the respect due to my age,
the courtesy of gentlemen. I had hoped so far from your
sense of honour, and the idea I had formed of you, that,
in my present great grief and perplexity, I should have
found you willing to soothe and help me as far as you
might — ^for, God knows, I have need of everybody’s sym-
pathy. But, instead of help, you fling obstacles in my
way. Instead of a friend — a gracious Heaven pardon
818
THE VIRGINIANS
me ! — find in you an enemy ! An enemy to the peace of
my home and the honour of my children, sir ! And as
such I shall treat you, and know how to deal mth you,
when you molest me I ’
And waving his hand to me, and putting on his hat,
Mr. Lambert hastily quitted my apartment.
I was confounded, and believed, indeed, there was war
between us. The brief happiness of yesterday was clouded
over and gone, and I thought that never since the day of
the first separation had I felt so exquisitely unhappy as
now, when the bitterness of quarrel was added to the
pangs of parting, and I stood not only alone but friendless.-
In the course of one year’s constant intimacy I had come
to regard Lambert with a reverence and affection which
I had never before felt for any mortal man except my
dearest Harry. That his face should be turned from me
in anger was as if the sun had gone out of my sphere,
and all was dark around me. j^d yet I felt sure that
in withdrawing the hasty promise I had made not to see
Theo, I was acting rightly — ^that my fidehty to her, as hers
now to me, was paramount to all other ties of duty or
obedience, and that, ceremony or none, I was hers, first
and before all. Promises were passed between us, from
which no parent could absolve either ; and all the priests
in Christendom could no more than attest and confirm the
sacred contract which had tacitly been ratified between us.
I saw Jack Lambert by chance that day, as I went
mechanically to my not unusual haunt, the library of the
new Museum ; and with the impetuousness of youth,
and eager to impart my sorrow to some one, I took him
out of the room and led him about the gardens, and poured
out my grief to him. I did not much care for Jack (who in
truth was somewhat of a prig, and not a httle pompous
and wearisome with his Latin quotations) except in the
time of my ovm sorrow, when I would fasten upon him
or any one ; and having suffered himself in his affair with
the little American, being havd ignarvs mali (as I knew
he would say), I found the college gentleman ready to
compassionate another’s misery. I told him, what has
here been represented at greater length, of my yesterday’s
meeting with his sister ; of my interview with his father
in the morning ; of my determination at aU hazards never
to part with Theo. When I found from the various quota-
HOW EVERYBODY GOT OUT OF THE LANDAU 819
tions from the Greek and Latin authors which he uttered
that he leaned to my side in the dispute, I thought him
a man of great sense, clung eagerly to his elbow, and
bestowed upon him much more affection than he was accus-
tomed at other times to have from me. I walked with
him up to his father’s lodgings in Dean Street ; saw him
enter at the dear door ; surveyed the house from -without
with a sickening desire to know from its exterior appearance
how my beloved fared within ; and called for a bottle
at the coffee-house where I waited Jack’s return. I called
him brother when I sent him away. I fondled him as the
condemned wretch at Newgate hangs about the jailer or
the parson, or any one who is kind to him in his misery.
I drank a whole bottle of wine at the coffee-house — by the
way. Jack’s Coffee-house was its name — called another.
I thought Jack would never come back.
He appeared at length with rather a scared face ; and,
coming to my box, poured out for himself two or three
bumpers from my second bottle, and then fell to his story,
which, to me at least, was not a little interesting. My poor
Theo was keeping her room, it appeared, being much
agitated by the occurrences of yesterday ; and Jack had
come home in time to find dinner on table ; after wkich his
good father held forth upon the occurrences of the morning,
being anxious and able to speak more freely, he said, because
his eldest son was present and Theodosia was not in the
room. The general stated what had happened at my
lodgings between me and him. He bade Hester be silen-fc,
who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poor thing ! he told
Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction of
pocket-handkerchiefs which I h^ave before described),
and with something Hke an imprecation, that the women
were all against him, and pimps (he called them) for one
another ; and frantically turning round to Jack, asked
what was his view in the matter ?
To his father’s surprise and his mother’s and sister’s
delight Jack made a speech on my side. He ruled wuth
me (citing what ancient authorities I don’t know), that
the matter had gone out of the hands of the parents on
either side ,* that having given their consent, some months
previously, the elders had put themselves out of court.
Though he did not hold with a great, a respectable, he
might say a host of divines, those sacramental views of
820
THE VIRGINIANS
the marriage-ceremony — ^for which there was a great deal
to be said — ^yet he held it, if possible, even more sacredly
than they ; conceiving that though marriages were made
before the civil magistrate, and without the priest, yet they
were, before Heaven, binding and indissoluble.
‘ It is not merely, sir,’ says Jack, turning to his father,
' those whom I, John Lambert, Priest, have joined, let no
man put asunder ; it is those whom Ood has joined let
no man separate.’ (Here he took off his hat, as he told
the story to me.) ‘ My views are clear upon the point,
and surely these young people were joined, or permitted
to plight themselves to each other by the consent of you,
the priest of your own family. My views, I say, are clear,
and I wiU lay them down at length in a series of two or
three discourses which, no doubt, will satisfy you. Upon
which,’ says Jack, ‘ my father said, “ I am satisfied already,
my dear boy,” and my lively little Het (who has much
archness) whispers to me, “ Jack, mother and I will make
you a dozen shirts, as sure as eggs is eggs.”
‘ Whilst we were talking,’ Jih*. Lambert resumed, ‘ my
sister, Theodosia, made her appearance, I must say very
much agitated and pale, kissed our father, and sat down
at his side, and took a sippet of toast — (my dear George,
this port is excellent, and I drink your health) — and took
a sippet of toast and dipped it in his negus.
‘ ‘‘ You should have been here to hear Jack’s sermon I ”
says Hester. “ He has been preaching most beautifully.”
" ‘‘ Has he ? ” asks Theodosia, who is too languid and
weak, poor thing, much to care for the exercises of eloquence,
or the display of authorities, such as I must own,’ says
Jack, ‘ it was given to me this afternoon to bring forward.
‘ “ He has talked for three-quarters of an hour by Shrews-
bury clock,” says my father, though I certainly had not
talked so long or half so long hy my own watch, “ And his
discourse has been you, my dear,” says papa, playing
with Theodosia’s hand.
‘ Me, papa ? ”
‘ “ You and — and Mr. Warrington — ^and — and George,
my love,” says papa. Upon which ’ (says Mr. Jack) ‘ my
sister came closer to the general, and laid her head upon
him, and wept upon his shoulder.
‘ ‘‘ This is different, sir,” says I, ** to a passage I remember
in Pausanias,’^
HOW EVERYBODY GOT OUT OF THE LANDAU 821
‘ “ In PaiLsanias? Indeed ! ” said the general. “ And
pray who was he ? ”
‘ I smiled at my father’s simphcity in exposing his
ignorance before his children. ‘‘ When Ulysses was
taking away Penelope from her father, the king hastened
after his daughter and bridegroom, and besought his
darling to return. Whereupon, it is related, Ulysses
offered her her choice, — whether she would return, or go
on with him ? Upon which the daughter of Icarius covered
her face with her veil. For want of a veil my sister has
taken refuge in your waistcoat, sir,” I said, and we all
laughed ; though my mother vowed that if such a proposal
had been made to Aer, or Penelope had been a girl of spirit,
she would have gone home with her father that instant.
‘ “ But I am not a girl of any spirit, dear mother ! ” says
Theodosia, still in gremio 'patris. I do not remember that
this habit of caressing was frequent in my own youth,’
continues Jack. ‘ But after some more discourse, Brother
Warrington ! I bethought me of you, and left my parents
insisting upon Theodosia returning to bed. The late
transactions have, it appears, weakened and agitated
her much. I myself have experienced, in my own case,
how full of solliciti timoris is a certain passion ; how it racks
the spirits ,* and I make no doubt, if carried far enough,
or indulged to the extent to which women who have little
philosophy will permit it to go — ^I make no doubt, I say,
is ultimately injurious to the health. My service to you,
brother ! ’
From grief to hope, how rapid the change was ! What
a flood of happiness poured into my soul, and glowed in
my whole being ! Landlord, more port 1 Would honest
Jack have drunk a bin full I would have treated him ; and,
to say truth. Jack’s sympathy was large in this case, and
it had been generous all day. I decline to score the bottles
of port : and place to the fabulous computations of inter-
ested waiters, the amount scored against me in the reckoning.
Jack was my dearest, best of brothers. My friendship for
him I swore should be eternal. If I could do him any
service, were it a bishopric, by George ! he should have
it. He says I was interrupted by the watchman
rhapsodizing verses beneath the loved one’s window. I
know not. I know I awoke joyfully and rapturously, in
spite of a racking headache the next morning.
822
THE VIRGINIANS
Nor did I know the extent of my happiness quite, or
the entire conversion of my dear noble enemy of the previous
morning. It must have been galling to the pride of an
elder man to have to yield to representations and objections
couched in language so little dutiful as that I had used
towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman,
retiring from his talk with me, mortified and wounded by
my asperity of remonstrance, as weU as by the pain which
he saw his beloved daughter suffer, went thoughtfully
and sadly to his business, as he subsequently told me,
and in the afternoon (as his custom not unfrequently was),
into a church which was open for prayers. And it was
here, on his knees, submitting his case in the quarter
whither he frequently, though privately, came for guidance
and comfort, that it seemed to him that his child was
right in her persistent fidelity to me, and himself wrong
in demanding her utter submission. Hence Jack’s cause
was won almost before he began to plead it ; and the
brave, gentle heart, which could bear no rancour, which
bled at inflicting pain on those it loved, which even shrank
from asserting authority or demanding submission, was
only too glad to return to its natural pulses of love and
affection.
823
CHAPTER LXXVIII
PYRAMUS AND THISBB
examining the old papers
at home, years afterwards,
I found, docketed and
labelled with my mother’s
well - known neat hand-
writing, ‘ From London,
April, 1760. My son’s
dreadful letter.’ When it
came to be mine I burnt the
document, not choosing that
that story of domestic grief
and disunion should remain
amongst our family annals
for future Warringtons to
gaze on, mayhap, and dis-
obedient sons to hold up
as examples of foregone domestic rebellions. For similar
reasons, I have destroyed the paper which my mother
dispatched to me at this time of tyranny, revolt, annoy-
ance, and irritation.
Maddened by the pangs of separation from my mistress,
and not unrightly considering that Mrs. Esmond was the
prime cause of the greatest grief and misery which had
ever befallen me in the world, I wrote home to Virginia
a letter, which might have been more temperate, it is true,
but in which I endeavoured to maintain the extremest
respect and reticence. I said I did not know by what
motives she had been influenced, but that I held her
answerable for the misery of my future life, which she
had chosen wilfully to mar and render wretched. She
had occasioned a separation between me and a virtuous
and innocent young creature, whose own hopes, health,
and happiness were cast down for ever by Mrs. Esmond’s
interference. The deed was done, as I feared, and I would
ofler no comment upon the conduct of the perpetrator,
who was answerable to God alone ; but I did not disguise
from my mother that the injury which she had done me
824
THE VIRGINIANS
was so dreadful and mortal, that her life or mine could
never repair it ; that the tie of my allegiance was broken
towards her, and that I never could be, as heretofore, her
dutiful and respectful son.
Madam Esmond replied to me in a letter of very great
dignity (her style and correspondence were extraordinarily
elegant and fine). She uttered not a single reproach or
hard word, but coldly gave me to understand that it was
before that awful tribunal of God she had referred the case
between us, and asked for counsel ,* that, in respect of her
own conduct, as a mother, she was ready, in all humility,
to face it. Might I, as a son, be equally able to answer
for myself, and to show, when the Great Judge demanded
the question of me, whether I had done my own duty,
and honoured my father and mother ! 0 ^opoi^ my
grandfather has quoted in his memoir a line of Homer,
showing how in our troubles and griefs the gods are always
called in question. When our pride, our avarice, our
interest, our desire to domineer, are worked upon, are we
not for ever pestering Heaven to decide in their favour ?
In our great American quarrel, did we not on both sides
appeal to the skies as to the justice of our causes, sing
Te Deum for victory, and boldly express our confidence
that the right should prevail ? Was America right because
she was victorious ? Then I suppose Poland was wrong
because she was defeated ? — ^How am I wandering into this
digression about Poland, America, and what not, and
all the while thinking of a little woman now no more,
who appealed to Heaven and confronted it with a thousand
texts out of its own book, because her son wanted to make
a marriage not of her liking ! We appeal, we imprecate,
we go down on our knees, we demand blessings, we shriek
out for sentence according to law; the great course of
the great world moves on ; we pant, and strive, and
struggle ; we hate ; we rage ; we weep passionate tears ;
we reconcile ; we race and win ; we race and lose ; we
pass away, and other little strugglers succeed ; our days
are spent ; our night comes, and another morning rises,
which shines on us no more.
My letter to Madam Esmond, announcing my revolt and
disobedience (perhaps I myself was a Httle proud of the
composition of that document), I showed in duplicate to
Mr. Lambert, because I wished him to understand what
PYRAIMUS AND THISBE
825
my relations to my mother ^rere, and how I was determined,
w^hatever of threats or quarrels the future might bring,
never for my own part to consider my separation from
Theo as other than a forced one. Whenever I could see
her again I would. My word given to her was in secula
semlorum, or binding at least as long as my life should
endure. I imphed that the girl was similarly bound to
me, and her poor father knew indeed as much. He might
separate us ; as he might give her a dose of poison, and
the gentle, obedient creature would take it and die ; but
the death or separation would be his doing : let him answer
them. Now he was tender about his children to weakness,
and could not have the heart to submit any one of them —
this one especially — to torture. We had tried to part : we
could not. He had endeavoured to separate us ; it was
more than was in his power. The bars were up, but the
young couple — ^the maid within and the knight without —
were loving each other all the same. The wall was built,
but Pyramus and Thisbe were whispering on either side.
In the midst of all his grief and perplexity, Uncle Lambert
had plenty of humour, and could not but see that his role
was rather a sorry one. Light was beginning to show
through that lime and rough plaster of the wall : the
lovers were getting their hands through, then their heads
through — ^indeed, it was wall’s best business to retire.
I forget what happened stage by stage and day by day ;
nor, for the instruction of future ages, does it much matter.
Wlien my descendants have love scrapes of their own, they
will find their own means of getting out of their troubles.
I believe I did not go back to Dean Street, but that practice
of driving in the open air was considered most healthful
for Miss Lambert. I got a fine horse, and rode by the
side of her carriage. The old woman at Tottenham Court
came to know both of us quite well, and nod and wink
in the most friendly manner when we passed by. I fancy
the old Goody was not unaccustomed to interest herself in
young couples, and has dispensed the hospitality of her
roadside cottage to more than one pair.
The doctor and the country air efected a prodigious cure
upon Miss Lambert. Hetty always attended as duenna,
and sometimes of his holiday. Master Charley rode my
horse when I got into the carriage. What a deal of love-
making Miss Hetty heard ! — with what exemplary patience
826
THE VIRGINIANS
she listened to it 1 I do not say she went to hear the
Methodist sermons any more, but ’tis certain that when
we had a closed carriage she would very kindly and con-
siderately look out of the window. Then, what heaps
of letters there were ! — what running to and fro 1 Gumbo’s
bandy legs were for ever on the trot from my quarters to
Bean Street ; and, on my account or her own, Mrs. Molly,
the girls’ maid, was for ever bringing back answers to
Bloomsbury. By the time when the autumn leaves began
to turn pale. Miss Theo’s roses were in full bloom again,
and my good Doctor Heberden’s cure was pronounced
to be complete. What else happened during this blessed
period ? Mr, Warrington completed his great tragedy of
Pocahontas, which was not only accepted by Mr. Garrick
this timte (his friend Dr. Johnson having spoken not un-
favourably of the work), but my friend and cousin, Hagan,
was engaged by the manager to perform the part of the
hero, Captain Smith. Hagan’s engagement was not made
before it was wanted. I had helped him and his family
with means disproportioned, perhaps, to my power,
especially considering my feud with Madam Esmond, whose
answer to my angry missive of April came to me towards
autumn, and who wrote back from Virginia with war for
war, controlment for controlment. These menaces, how-
ever, frightened me little : my poor mother’s thunder could
not reach me ; and my conscience, or casuistry, supplied
me with other interpretations for her texts of Scripture,
so that her oracles had not the least weight with me in
frightening me from my purpose. How my new loves
speeded I neither informed her, nor any other members
of my maternal or paternal family, who, on both sides,
had been bitter against my marriage. Of what use wurang-
ling with them ? It was better to carpere diem and its
sweet loves and pleasures, and to leave the railers to grumble,
or the seniors to advise, at their ease.
Besides Madam Esmond I had, it must be owned, in
the frantic rage of my temporary separation, addressed
notes of wondrous sarcasm to my Uncle Warrington, to
my Aunt Madame de Bernstein, and to my Lord or Lady
of Castlewood (I forget to which individually), thanking
them for the trouble which they had taken in preventing the
dearest happiness of my life, and promising them a corre-
sponding gratitude from their obliged relative. Business
PYRAJ^IUS AJSID THISBE
827
brought the jovial baronet and his family to London
somewhat earlier than usual, and Madame de Bernstein
was never sorry to get back to Clarges Street and her
cards. I saw them. They found me perfectly well. They
concluded the match was broken off, and I did not
choose to undeceive them. The baroness took heart
at seeing how cheerful I was, and made many sly jokes
about my philosophy, and my prudent behaviour as a man
of the world. She was, as ever, bent upon finding a rich
match for me : and I fear I paid many compliments at her
house to a rich young soap-boiler’s daughter from Mile
End, whom the worthy baroness vished to place in my
arms.
‘ You court her with infinite wit and esprit, my dear,’
says my pleased kinswoman, ‘ but she does not understand
half you say, and the other half, I think, frightens her.
This ton de 'persiflage is very well in our society, but you
must be sparing of it, my dear nephew, amongst these
roturiers,'*
Miss Badge married a young gentleman of royal dignity,
though shattered fortunes, from a neighbouring island ;
and I trust Mrs. Mackshane has ere this pardoned my levity.
There was another person besides miss at my aunt’s house,
who did not understand my persiflage much better than
miss herself ; and that was a lady who had seen James
the Second’s reign, and who was alive and as worldly as
ever in King George’s. I loved to be with her : but that
my little folks have access to this volume, I could put
down a hundred stories of the great old folks whom she had
known in the great old days — of George the Eirst and his
ladies, of St. John and Marlborough, of his reigning Majesty
and the late Prince of Wales, and the causes of the quarrel
' between them — but my modest muse pipes for boys and
virgins. Son Miles does not care about Court stories,
or if he doth, has a fresh budget from Carlton House,
quite as bad as the worst of our old baroness. No, my
dear wife, thou hast no need to shake thy powdered locks
at me ! Papa is not going to scandahze his nursery with
Old World gossip, nor bring a blush over our chaste bread-
and-butter.
But this piece of scandal I cannot help. My aunt used
to tell it with infinite gusto ; for, to do her justice, she
hated your would-be good people, and sniggered over the
828
THE VIRGINIANS
faults of the self-styled righteous with uncommon satis-
faction. In her later days she had no hypocrisy, at least ;
and in so far was better than some white- washed . . . Well,
to the story. My Lady Warrington, one of the tallest and
the most virtuous of her sex, who had goodness for ever
on her lips and ‘ Heaven in her eye’, hke the woman in
Mr. Addison’s tedious tragedy (which has kept the stage,
from which some others, wMch shall be nameless, have
disappeared), had the world in her other eye, and an exceed-
ingly shrewd desire of pushing herself in it. What does
she do when my marriage with your ladyship yonder was
supposed to be broken off, but attempt to play off on me
those arts which she had tried on my poor Harry with such
signal ill-success, and which failed with me likewise ! It
was not the Beauty — Miss Mora was for my master (and
what a master I I protest I take off my hat at the idea
of such an illustrious connexion !) — ^it was Dora, the Muse,
was set upon me to languish at me and to pity me, and
to read even my godless tragedy, and applaud me and
console me. Meanwhile, how was the Beauty occupied ?
Will it be believed that my severe aunt gave a great enter-
tainment to my Lady Yarmouth, presented her boy to her,
and placed poor little Miles under her ladyship’s august
protection ? That, so far is certain ; but can it be that
she sent her daughter to stay at my lady’s house, which
our gracious lord and master daily visited, and with the
views which old Aunt Bernstein attributed to her ? ‘ But
for that fit of apoplexy, my dear,’ Bernstein said, " that
aunt of yours intended there should have been a countess in
her own right in the Warrington family ! ’ * My neighbour
and kinswoman, my Lady Claypool, is dead and buried.
Grow white, ye daisies upon Mora’s tomb ! I can see my
pretty Miles, in a gay little uniform of the Norfolk Militia,
led up by his parent to the lady whom the king delighted
to honour, and the good-natured old Jezebel laying her
hand upon the boy’s curly pate. I am accused of being
but a lukewarm royalist ; but sure I can contrast those
times with ours, and acknowledge the difference between
* Compare Walpole’s letters in Mr. Cunningham’s excellent
new edition. See the story of the supper at N. House, to show
what great noblemen would do for a king’s mistress, and the pleasant
account of the waiting for the Prince of Wales before Holland
House.— E ditoe.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE
829
the late sovereign and the present, who, born a Briton,
has given to every family in the empire an example of
decorum and virtuous life.*
Thus my life sped in the pleasantest of all occupation ;
and, being so happy myself, I could ajfford to be reconciled
to those who, after all, had done me no injury, but rather
added to the zest of my happiness by the brief obstacle
which they had placed in my way. No specific plans
were formed, but Theo and I Imew that a day would come
when we need say Farewell no more. Should the day
befall a year hence — ^ten years hence — we were ready to
wait. Day after day we discussed our little plans, with
Hetty for our confidante. On our drives we spied out
pretty cottages that we thought might suit young people
of small means ; we devised all sorts of delightful schemes
and childish economies. We were Strephon and Chloe
to be sure. A cot and a brown loaf should content us 1
Gumbo and Molly should wait upon us (as indeed they
have done from that day until this). At twenty who is
afraid of being poor ? Our trials would only confirm our
attachment. The ‘sweet sorrow’ of every day’s parting
but made the morrow’s meeting more delightful ; and
when we separated we ran home and wrote each other those
precious letters, which we and other young gentlemen
and ladies write under such circumstances ; but though
my wife has them all in a great tin sugar-box in the closet
in her bedroom, .and, I own, I myself have looked at them
once, and even thought some of them pretty, — hereby
desire my heirs and executors to burn them all, unread,
at our demise ; specially desiring my son the captain (to
whom I know the perusal of MSS. is not pleasant) to
perform this duty. Those secrets whispered to the penny
post, or delivered between Molly and Gumbo, were intended
for us alone, and no ears of our descendants shall overhear
them.
We heard in successive brief letters how our dear Harry
continued with the army, as^ General Amherst’s aide de
camp, after the death of his own glorious general. By the
middle of October, there came news of the capitulation
of Montreal and the whole of Canada, and a brief postscript
in which Hal said he would ask for leave now, and must
go and see the old lady at home, who wrote as sulky as
* The Warrington MS. is dated 1793. — Ed.
m
THE VIRGINIANS
a hear Captain Warrington remarked. I could guess why,
though the claws could not reach me. I had written
pretty fully to my brother how affairs w^ere standing with
me in England.
Then, on the 25th October, comes the news that his
Majesty has fallen down dead at Kensington, and that
George III reigned over us. I fear we grieved but little.
What do those care for the Atridae, whose hearts are strung
only to erota mounon ? A modest, handsome, brave new
prince, we gladly accept the common report that he is
endowed with every virtue ; and we c^ huzzay with the
loyal crowd that hails his accession : it could make little
difference to us, as we thought, simple young sweethearts,
whispering our little love-stories in our corner.
But who can say how great events affect him ? Did
not our little Charley, at the Chartreux, wish impiously
for a new king immediately, because on his gracious Majesty’s
accession Doctor Crusius gave his boys a holiday ? He
and I, and Hetty, and Theo (Miss Theo was strong enough
to walk many a delightful mile now), heard the Heralds
proclaim his new Majesty before Savile House in Leicester
Fields, and a pickpocket got the watch and chain of a
gentleman hard by us, and was caught and carried to Bride-
well, all on account of his Majesty’s accession. Had the
king not died, the gentleman would not have been in the
crowd ; the chain would not have been seized ; the thief
would not have been caught and soundly whipped : in this
way many of us, more or less remotely, were implicated
in the great change which ensued, and even we humble
folks were affected by it presently.
As thus. My Lord Wrotham was a great friend of the
august family of Savile House, who knew and esteemed
his many virtues. Now, of aU living men, my Lord
Wrotham knew and loved best his neighbour and old
feUow-soldier, Martin Lambert, declaring that the world
contained few better gentlemen. And my Lord Bute,
being, all-potent, at first, with his Majesty, and a nobleman,
as I believe, very eager at the commencement of his brief
and luckless tenure of power, to patronize merit wherever
he could find it, was strongly prejudiced in Mr. Lambert’s
favour by the latter’s old and constant friend.
My (and Harry’s) old friend Parson Sampson, who had
been in and out of gaol I don’t know how many times of
PYRAMUS AND THISBE
831
late years, and retained an ever-enduring hatred for the
Esmonds of Castlewood, and as lasting a regard for me
and my brother, was occupying poor Hal’s vacant bed
at my lodgings at this time (being, in truth, hunted out of
his own by the bailiffs). I liked to have Sampson near me,
for a more amusing Jack-friar never walked in cassock ;
and, besides, he entered into all my rhapsodies about Miss
Theo ; was never tired (so he vowed) of hearing me talk
of her; admired Pocahontas and Carpezan with, I do
believe, an honest enthusiasm ; and could repeat whole
passages of those tragedies with an emphasis and effect
that Barry or Cousin Hagan himself could not surpass.
Sampson was the go-between between Lady Maria and such
of her relations as had not disowned her ; and, always in
debt himself, was never more happy than in drinking
a pot, or mingling his tears with his friends in similar
poverty. BKs acquaintance with pawnbrokers’ shops was
prodigious. He could procure more money, he boasted,
on an article than any gentleman of his cloth. He never
paid his own debts, to be sure, but he was ready to forgive
his debtors. Poor as he was, he always found means to
love and help his needy little sister, and a more prodigal,
kindly, amiable rogue never probably grinned behind
bars. They say that I love to have parasites about me.
I own to have had a great liking for Sampson, and to have
esteemed him much better than probably much better
men.
When he heard how my Lord Bute was admitted into
the cabinet, Sampson vowed and declared that his lordship
— ^a great lover of the drama, who had been to see Garpezan,
who had admired it, and who would act the part of the
king very finely in it — ^he vowed, by George I that my
lord must give me a place worthy of my birth and merits.
He insisted upon it that I should attend his lordship’s levee.
I wouldn’t ? The Esmonds were all as proud as Lucifer ;
and, to be sure, my birth was as good as that of any man
in Europe.^ Where was my lord himself when the Esmonds
were lords of great counties, warriors, and Crusaders ?
Where were they ? Beggarly Scotchmen,, without a rag
to their backs — ^by George I tearing raw fish in their
islands. But now the times were changed. The Scotchmen
were in luck. Mum’s the word ! ‘ I don’t envy him,’
says Sampson, ‘but he shall provide for you and my dearest,
832
THE VIRGINIANS
noblest, heroic captain ! He shall, by George 1 ’ would
my worthy parson roar out. And when, in the month
after his accession, his Majesty ordered the play of Richard
III at Drury Lane, my chaplain cursed, vowed, swore, but
he would have him to Covent Garden to see Carpezan,
too. And now, one morning, he bursts into my apartment,
where I happened to lie rather late, waving the news-
paper in his hand, and singing ‘ Huzza ’ ! with aU his
might.
‘ What is it, Sampson ? ’ says I. ‘ Has my brother got
his promotion ? ’
‘ No, in truth : but some one else has. Huzzay I huzzay !
His Majesty has appointed Major-General Martin Lambert
to be governor and commander-in-chief of the island of
Jamaica.’
I started up. Here was news, indeed ! Mr. Lambert
would go to his government : and who would go with him ?
I had been supping with some genteel young fellows at
the ‘ Cocoa-Tree The rascal Gumbo had a note for me
from my dear mistress on the night previous, conveying
the same news to me, and had delayed to deliver it. Theo
begged me to see her at the old place at midday the next
day without fail.*
There was no little trepidation in our little council when
we reached our place of meeting. Papa had announced
his acceptance of the appointment, and his speedy departure.
He wordd have a frigate given him, and take his family
with him. Merciful powers ! and were we to be parted ?
My Theo’s old deathly paleness returned to her. Aunt
LUmbert thought she would have swooned ; one of Mrs.
Goodison’s girls had a bottle of salts, and ran up with it
from the work-room. ‘ Going away ? Going away in
a frigate. Aunt Lambert ? Going to tear her away from
me ? Great God ! Aunt Lambert, I shall die ! ’ She was
better when mamma came up from the work-room with
the young lady’s bottle of salts. You see, the women used
to meet me : knowing dear Theo’s delicate state, how could
they refrain from compassionating her ? But the general
was so busy with his levees and his waiting on ministers,
and his outfit, and the settlement of his affairs at home,
* In the Warrington MS. there is not a word to say what the
‘ old place ’ was. Perhaps some obliging reader of Notes and
Queries will be able to inform me, and who Mrs. Goodison was. — E d.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE
83a
that they never happened to tell him about our little
walks and meetings ; and even when orders for the outfit
of the ladies were given, Mrs. Goodison, who had known
and w’orked for Miss Molly Benson as a schoolgirl (she
remembered Miss Esmond of Virginia perfectly, the worthy
lady told me, and a dress she made for the young lady to
be presented at her Majesty’s Ball) — ‘ even when the outfit
was ordered for the three ladies,’ says Mrs. Goodison,
demurely, ‘why, I thought I could do no harm in completing
the order.’
Now I need not say in what perturbation of mind Mr.
Warrington went home in the evening to his lodgings,
after the discussion with the ladies of the above news.
No, or at least a very few, more walks ; no more rides to
dear, dear Hampstead or beloved Islington ; no more
fetching and carrying of letters for Gumbo and Molly I
The former blubbered so, that Mr. Warrington was quite
touched by his fidelity, and gave him a crown piece to go
to supper with the poor girl, who turned out to be his sweet-
heart. What, you too unhappy. Gumbo, and torn from
the maid you love ? I was ready to mingle with him tear
for tear.
What a solemn conference I had with Sampson that
evening ! He knew my affairs, my expectations, my
mother’s anger. Psha ! that was far off, and he knew
some excellent liberal people (of the order of Melchisedec)
who would discount the other. The general would not
give his consent ? Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders
and swore a great roaring oath. My mother would not
relent ? What then ? A man was a man, and to make
his own way in the world 2 he supposed. He is only
a churl who won’t play for such a stake as that, and lose
or win, by George ! shouts the chaplain, over a bottle of
burgundy at the ‘ Bedford Head ’, where we dined. I need
not put down our conversation. We were two of us, and
I think there was only one mind between us. Our talk
was of a Saturday night ....
I did not tell Theo, nor any relative of hers, what was
being done. But when the dear child faltered and talked,
trembling, of the coming departure, I bade her bear up,
and vowed all would be well, so confidently, that she, who
ever has taken her alarms and joys from my face (I wish,
my dear^ it were sometimes not so gloomy), could not but
VIRGINIANS E e
834
THE VntGINIANS
feel confidence ; and placed (with many fond words that need
not here be repeated) her entire trust in me — ^murmuring
those sweet words of Ruth that must have comforted
myriads of tender hearts in my dearest maiden’s plight ;
that whither I would go she would go, and that my people
should be hers. At last, one day, the general’s preparations
being made, the trunks encumbering the passages of the
dear old Dean Street lodging, which I shall love as long
as I shall remember at all — one day, almost the last of his
stay, when the good man (his Excellency we called him now)
came home to his dinner — ^a comfortless meal enough
it was in the present condition of the family — ^he looked
round the table at the place where I used to sit in happy
old days, and sighed out : ‘ I wish, Molly, George was
here.’
‘ Do you, Martin ? ’ says Aunt Lambert, flinging into his
arms.
‘ Yes, I do ; but I don’t wish you to choke me, Molly,’
he says. ‘ I love him dearly. I may go away and never
see him again, and take his foolish little sweetheart along
with me. I suppose you will write to each other, children ?
I can’t prevent that, you know ; and until he changes his
mind, I suppose Miss Theo won’t obey papa’s orders, and
get him out of her foolish little head. Wilt thou, Theo ? ’
‘ No, dearest, dearest, best papa ! ’
‘ What ! more embraces and kisses ! What does all
this mean ? ’
‘It means that — ^that George is in the drawing-room,’
says mamma.
‘ Is he ? My dearest boy 1 ’ cries the general. ‘ Come
to me — come in ! ’ And when I entered he held me to his
heart, and kissed me.
I confess at this I was so overcome that I fell down on
my knees before' the dear, good man, and sobbed on his
own.
‘ God bless you, my dearest boy ! ’ he mutters hurriedly.
‘ Always loved you as a son — haven’t I, MoUy ? Broke my
heart nearly when I quarrelled with you about this little —
What ! — odds marrowbones ! — all down on your knees !
Mrs. Lambert, pray, what is the meaning of all this ? ’
‘ Dearest, dearest papa ! I wiU go with you all the same ! ’
whimpers one of the kneehng party. ‘ And I wiU wait —
oh 1 as long as ever my dearest father wants me ! ’
PYRAMUS AND THISBE
835
* In Heaven’s name ! ’ roars the general, " tell me what
has happened ? ’
What had happened was, that George Esmond Warrington
and Theodosia Lambert had been married in South w^ark
that morning, their banns having been duly called in the
church of a certain friend of the Reverend ]&*. Sampson.
CHAPTER LXXIX
CONTAINING BOTH COMEDY AND TEAGEDY
B, who had been active in the
guilty scene of the morning, felt
trebly guilty when we saw the
effect which our conduct had
produced upon him, who, of all
others, we loved and respected.
The shock to the good man was
strange, and pitiful to us to wit-
ness who had administered it. The
child of his heart had deceived
and disobeyed him : — 1 declare
I think, my dear, now, we would
not or could not do it over
again ; — his whole family had
entered into a league against him.
Dear, kind friend and father !
We know thou hast pardoned our wrong — ^in the Heaven
where thou dwellest . amongst purified spirits who learned
on earth how to love and pardon ! To love and forgive
were easy duties with that man. Beneficence was natural
to him, and a sweet, smiling humility ; and to wound either
was to be savage and brutal, as to torture a child, or strike
blows at a nursing woman. The deed done, all we guilty
ones groveUed in the earth, before the man we had injured.
I pass over the scenes of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of
common worship together, of final separation when the
good man departed to his government, and the ship sailed
away before us, leaving me and Theo on the shore. We
stood there hand in hand horribly abashed, silent, and
836
THE VIRGINIANS
guilty. My wife did not come to me till her father went :
in the interval between the ceremony of our marriage and
his departure, she had remained at home, occupying her
old place by her father and bed by her sister’s side : he
as l^d as ever, but the women almost speechless among
themselves ; Aunt Lambert, for once, unkind and fretfiS
in her temper ; and little Hetty feverish and strange, and
saying, * I wish we were gone. I wish we were gone.’
Though admitted to the house, and forgiven, I slunk away
during those last days, and only saw my wife for a minute
or two in the street, or with her family. She was not mine
till they were gone. We went to Winchester and Hampton
for what may be called our wedding. It was but a dismal
business. For a while we felt utterly lonely : and of our
dear father as if we had buried him, or drove him to the
grave by our undutifulness.
I made Sampson announce our marriage in the papers.
(My wife used to hang down her head before the poor
fellow afterwards.) I took Mrs. Warrington back to my
old lodgings in Bloomsbury, where there was plenty of
room for us, and our modest married life began. I wrote
home a letter to my mother in Virginia, informing her of no
particulars, but only that Mr. Lambert being about to
depart for his government, I considered myseS bound in
honour to fulfil my promise towards his dearest daughter ;
and stated that I intended to carry out my intention of
completing my studies for the Bar, and qualifying myself
for employment at home, or in our own or any other colony.
My good Mrs. Mountain answered this letter, by desire
of Madam Esmond, she said, who thought that for the sake
of peace my communications had best be conducted that
way. I found my relatives in a fury which was perfectly
amusing to witness. The butler’s face, as he said ‘ Not at
home at my uncle’s house in Hill Street, was a blank
tragedy that might have been studied by Garrick when he
sees Banquo. My poor little wife was on my arm, and we
were tripping away, laughing at the fellow’s accueil, when we
‘came upon my lady in a street stoppage in her chair. I took
off my hat and made her the lowest possible bow. I affec-
tionately asked after my dear cousins. ‘ I — I wonder
you dare look me in the face ! ’ Lady Warrington gasped
out. ‘ Nay, don’t deprive me of that precious privilege ! ’
says I. ‘Move on, Peter,’ she screams to her chairman.
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
837
‘ Your ladyship would not impale your husband^s own
flesh and blood ! ’ says I. She rattles up the glass of her
chair in a fury. I kiss my hand, take off my hat, and
perform another of my very finest bows.
Walking shortly afterwards in Hyde Park with my
dearest companion, I met my little cousin exercising on
horseback with a groom behind him. As soon as he sees
us, he gallops up to us, the groom powdering afterwards
and bawling out, ‘ Stop, Master Miles, stop ! ’ ‘I am not
to speak to my cousin,’ says Miles, ‘ but telling you to
send my love to Harry is not speaking to you. Is it ?
Is that my new cousin ? I’m not told not to speak to her.
I’m Miles, cousin. Sir George Warrington Baronet’s son,
and you are very pretty ! ’ ‘ Now, duee now. Master
Miles,’ says the groom, touching his hat to us ; and the
boy trots away laughing and looking at us over his
shoulder. ‘ You see how my relations have determined
to treat me,’ I say to my partner. ‘As if I married
you for your relations 1 ’ says Theo, her eyes beaming
joy and love into mine. Ah, how happy we were !
how brisk and pleasant the winter ! How snug the
kettle by the fire (where the abashed Sampson sometimes
came and made the punch) ; how delightful the night
at the theatre, for which our friends brought us tickets
of admission, and where we daily expected our new
play of Pocahontas would rival the successes of all former
tragedies.
The fickle old aunt of Clarges Street, who received me
on my first coming to London with my wife, with a burst
of scorn, mollified presently, and as soon as she came to
know Theo (whom she had pronounced to be an insignificant
little country-faced chit), fell utterly in love with her,
and would have her to tea and supper every day when
there was no other company. ‘ As for company, ‘my dears,’
she would say, ‘ I don’t ask you. You are no longer
du monde. Your marriage has put that entirely out of
the question.’ So she would have had us come to amuse
her, and go in and out by the back-stairs. My wife was
fine lady enough to feel only amused at this reception ;
and, I must do the baroness’s domestics the justice to say
that, had we been duke and duchess, we could not have
been received with more respect. Madame de Bernstein
was very much tickled and amused with my story of Lady
838
THE VIRGINIANS
Warrington and the chair. I acted it for her, and gave
her anecdotes of the pious baronet’s lady and her daughters,
which pleased the mischievous, lively old woman.
The Dowager Countess of Castlewood, now established
in her house at Kensington, gave us that kind of welcome
which genteel ladies extend to their poorer relatives. We
went once or twice to her ladyship’s drums at Kensington ;
but, losing more money at cards, and spending more money
in coach-hire, than I liked to afPord, we speedily gave up
those entertainments, and, I dare say, were no more missed
or regretted than other people in the fashionable world,
who are carried by death, debt, or other accident, out of
the polite sphere. My Theo did not in the least regret
this exclusion. She had made her appearance at one of
these drums, attired in some little ornaments which her
mother left behind her, and by which the good lady set
some store ; but I thought her own white neck was a great
deal prettier than these poor twinkling stones ; and there
were dowagers, whose wrinkled old bones blazed with
rubies and diamonds, which, I am sure, they would gladly
have exchanged for her modest parure of beauty and
freshness. Not a soul spoke to her — except, to be sure,
Beau Lothair, a friend of Mr. Will’s, who prowled about
Bloomsbury afterwards, and even sent my wife a billet.
I met him in Covent Garden shortly after, and promised
to break his ugly face if ever I saw it in the neighbourhood
of my lodgings, and Madam Theo was molested no farther.
The only one of our relatives who came to see us (Madame
de Bernstein never came ; she sent her coach for us some-
times, or made inquiries regarding us by her woman or her
major-domo) was our poor Maria, who, with her husband,
Mr. Hagan, often took a share of our homely dinner.
Then we had foiend Spencer from the Temple, who admired
our Arcadian felicity, and gently asked our sympathy
for his less fortunate loves ; and twice or thrice the famous
Doctor Johnson came in for a dish of Theo’s tea. A dish ?
a pail full ! * And a pail the best thing to feed him, sar I ’
says Mr. Gumbo, indignantly : for the doctor’s appearance
was not pleasant, nor his linen particularly white. He
snorted, he grew red, and sputtered in feeding ; he flung
bis meat about, and bawled out in contradicting people :
and annoyed my Theo, whom he professed to admire
greatly, by saying, every time he saw her, Madam, you
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
839
do not love me ; I see by your manner you do not love
me ; though I admire you, and come here for your sake.
Here is my friend Mr. Reynolds that shall paint you :
he has no ceruse in his paint-box that is as brilliant as your
complexion,’ And so Mr. Reynolds, a most perfect and
agreeable gentleman, would have painted my wife ; but
I knew what his price 'was, and did not choose to incur that
expense. I wish I had now, for the sake of the children,
that they might see what yonder face was like some five-
and-thirty years ago. To me, madam, ’tis the same now
as ever ; and your ladyship is always young !
What annoyed Mrs. Warrington with Doctor Johnson
more than his contradictions, his sputterings, and his
dirty nails, was, I think, an unfavourable opinion which
he formed of my new tragedy. Hagan once proposed
that he should read some scenes from it after tea.
‘ Nay, sir, conversation is better,’ says the doctor.
* I can read for myself, or hear you at the theatre. I had
rather hear Mrs. Warrington’s artless prattle than your
declamation of Mr. Warrington’s decasyllables. Tell us
about your household afiairs, madam, and whether his
excellency your father is well, and whether you made the
pudden and the butter sauce. The butter sauce was
delicious ! ’ (He loved it so well that he had kept a large
quantity in the bosom of a very dingy shirt.) ‘ You
made it as though you loved me. You helped me as
though you loved me, though you don’t.’
‘ Faith, sir, you are taking some of the present away
with you in your waistcoat,’ says Hagan, with much
spirit.
‘ Sir, you are rude ! ’ bawls the doctor. ‘ You are
unacquainted with the first principles of politeness, which
is courtesy before ladies. Having received a university
education, I am surprised that you have not learned the
rudiments of politeness. I respect Mrs. Warrington.
I should never think of making personal remarks about her
guests before her ! ’
‘ Then, sir,’ says Hagan, fiercely, ‘ why did you speak
of my theatre ? ’
‘ Sir, you are saucy ! ’ roars the doctor.
‘ De te fahula,^ says the actor. ‘ I think it is your waist-
coat that is saucy. Madam, shall I make some punch
in the way we make it in Ireland ? ’
840
THE VIEGINIANS
The doctor, pufiSng, and purple in the face, was wiping
the dingy shirt with a still more dubious pocket-handJker-
chief, which he then applied to his forehead. After this
exercise, he blew a hyperborean whistle, as if to blow his
wTath away. " It is de me, sir — ^though, as a young man,
perhaps you need not have told me so.’
" I drop my point, sir ! If you have been wrong, I am
sure I am bound to ask your pardon for setting you so !’
says Mr. Hagan, with a fine bow.
‘ Doesn’t he look like a god ? ’ says Maria, clutching
my wife’s hand : and indeed Mr. Hagan did look like
a handsome young gentleman. His colour had risen ;
he had put his hand to his breast with a noble air : Chamont
or Castalio could not present himself better.
‘ Let me make you some lemonade, sir ; my papa has
sent us a box of fresh Hmes. May we send you some to
the Temple ? ’
‘ Madam, if they stay in your house they will lose their
quality and turn sweet,’ says the doctor. ‘Mr. Hagan,
you are a young saucebox, that’s what you are ! Ho ! ho 1
It is I have been wrong.’
‘ 0 my lord, my PoHdore ! ’ bleats Lady Maria, when
she was alone in my wife’s drawing-room :
‘ Oh, I could hear thee talk for ever thus,
Eternally admiring , — Gx and gaze
On those dear eyes, for every glance they send
Darts through my soul, and fills my heart with rapture !
‘ Thou knowest not, my Theo, what a pearl and paragon
of a man my Castalio is ; my Chamont, my — Oh, dear
me, child, what a pity it is that in your husband’s tragedy
he should have to take the horrid name of Captain Smith ! ’
Upon this tragedy not only my literary hopes, but much
of my financial prospects were founded. My brother’s
debts discharged, my mother’s drafts from home duly
honoured, my own expenses paid, which, though moderate,
were not inconsiderable, — ^pretty nearly the whole of my
patrimony had been spent, and this auspicious moment
I must choose for my marriage ! I could raise money on
my inheritance : that was not impossible, though certainly
costly. My mother could not leave her eldest son without
a maintenance, whatever our quarrels might be. I had
health, strength, good wits, some friends, and reputation —
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
841
above all, my famous tragedy, which the manager had
promised to perform, and upon the proceeds of this I counted
for my present support. What becomes of the arithmetic
of youth ? How do we then calculate that a hundred
pounds is a maintenance, and a thousand a fortune ? How
did I dare play against Fortune with such odds ? I sue-
ceeded, I remember, in convincing my dear general, and
he left home convinced that his son-in-law had for the
present necessity at least a score of hundred pounds at his
command. He and his dear Molly had begun life with
less, and the ravens had somehow always fed them. As
for the women, the question of poverty was one of pleasure
to those sentimental souls, and Aunt Lambert, for her
part, declared it would be wicked and irreligious to doubt
of a provision being made for her children. Was the
Righteous ever forsaken ? Did the Just man ever have
to beg his bread ? She knew better than that ! " No,
no, my dears ! I am not going to be afraid on that account,
I warrant you ! Look at me and my general ! ’
Theo believed all I said and wished to believe myself.
So We actually began life upon a capital of Five Acts, and
about three hundred pounds of ready money in hand 1
Well, the time of the appearance of the famous tragedy
drew near, and my friends canvassed the town to get a body
of supporters for the opening night. I am ill at asking
favours from the great ; but when my Lord Wrotham
came to London, I went, with Theo in my hand, to wait
on his lordship, who received us kindly, out of regard for
his old friend, her father — though he good-naturedly shook
a finger at me (at which my little wife hung down her head),
for having stole a march on the good general. However,
he would do his best for her father’s daughter ; hoped
for a success ; said he had heard great things of the piece ;
and engaged a number of places for himself and his friends.
But this patron secured, I had no other. ‘ Mon cher^ at
my age,’ says the baroness, ‘ I should bore myself to death
at a tragedy : but I will do my best ; and I will certainly
send my people to the boxes. Yes ! Case in his best black
looks like a nobleman ; and Brett in one of my gowns, has
a faux air de moi which is quite distinguished. Put down
my name for two in the front boxes. Good-bye, my dear.
Bonne chance ! ’ The dowager countess presented com-
pliments (on the back of the nine of clubs), had a card
B e 3
842
THE VIEGINIANS
party that night, and was quite sorry she and Fanny could
not go to my tragedy. As for my uncle and Lady War-
rington, they were out of the question. After the affair
of the sedan-chair I might as well have asked Queen Eliza-
beth to go to Drury Lane. These were all my friends —
that host of aristocratic connexions about whom poor
Sampson had bragged; and on the strength of whom,
the manager, as he said, had given Mr. Hagan his engage-
ment ! ‘ Where was my Lord Bute ? Had I not promised
his lordship should come ? ’ he asks snappishly, taking
snuff < (how different from the brisk, and engaging, and
obsequious little manager of six months ago !) — ‘ I promised
Lord Bute should come 2 ’
‘ Yes,’ says Mt. Garrick, ‘ and her royal highness the
Princess of Wales, and his Majesty too.’
Poor Sampson owned that he, buoyed up by vain hopes,
had promised the appearance of these august personages.
The next day at rehearsal, matters were worse still, and
the manager in a fury.
‘ Great Heavens, sir I ’ says he, ' into what a pretty
gvM-d-pens have you led me 1 Look at that letter, sir !
— ^read that letter ! ’ And he hands me one.
My deae Sie (said the letter), — I have seen his lordship, and
conveyed to him Mr. Warrington’s request that he would honour
the tragedy of Pocahontas by his presence. His lordship is a patron
of the drama, and a magnificent friend of all the hberal arts ;
but he desires me to say that he cannot think of attending himself,
much less of asking his Gracious Master to witness the performance
of a play, a principal part in which is given to an actor who has
made a clandestine marriage with a daughter of one of his Majesty’s
nobility.
Your well wisher,
Satodees McDuee.
Mr. D. Gaeeick,
At the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
My poor Tlieo had a nice dinner waiting for me after the
rehearsal. I pleaded fatigue as the reason for looking so
pale : I did not dare to convey to her this dreadful news.
843
CHAPTER LXXX
POCAHONTAS
HE English public, not being so
well acquainted with the history
of Pocahontas as w^e of Virginia,
who still love the memory of that
simple and kindly creature, Mr.
Warrington, at the suggestion of
his friends, made a little ballad
about this Indian princess, which
was printed in the magazines
a few days before the appearance
of the tragedy. This proceeding,
Sampson and I considered to be
very artful and ingenious. ‘ It is
like ground-bait, sir,’ says the
enthusiastic parson, ‘ and you
will see the fish rise in multitudes,
on the great day ! ’ He and Spencer
declared that the poem was
discussed and admired at several
coffee-houses in their hearing,
and that it had been attributed to Mr. Mason, Mr. Cow-
per of the Temple, and even to the famous Mr. Gray. I
believe poor Sam had himself set abroad these reports ;
and, if Shakespeare had been named as the author of the
tragedy, would have declared Pocahontas to be one of the
poet’s best performances. I made acquaintance with brave
Captain Smith as a boy in my grandfather’s library at
home, where I remember how I would sit at the good old
man’s knees, with my favourite volume on my own, spell-
ing out the exploits of our Virginian hero. I loved to read
of Smith’s travels, sufferings, captivities, escapes, not only
in America, but Europe. I become a child again almost as
I take from the shelf before me in England the familiar
volume, and all sorts of recollections of my early home come
crowding over my mind. The old grandfather would make
pictures for me of Smith doing battle with the Turks on the
Danube, or led out by our Indian savages to death. Ah, what
SU THE VIRGINIANS
a terrific fight was that in which he was engaged with the
three Turkish champions, and how I used to delight over the
story of his combat vrith Bonny Molgro, the last and most
dreadful of the three ! What a name Bonny Molgro was,
and 'With what a prodigious turban, scimitar, and whiskers
we represented him ! Having slain and taken off the heads
of his first two enemies. Smith and Bonny Molgro met — fall-
ing to (says my favourite old book) ‘ with their battle-axes,
whose piercing bills made sometimes the one, sometimes
the other, to have scarce sense to keep their saddles :
especially the Christian received such a wound that he lost
his battle-axe, whereat the supposed conquering Turke
had a great shout from the rampires. Yet, by the readinesse
of his horse, and his great judgement and dexteritie, he
not only avoided the Turke’s blows, but, having drawn his
falchion, so pierced the Turke under the cutlets, through
back and body, that though hee alighted from his horse,
hee stood not long, ere hee lost his head as the rest had
done. In reward for which deed, Duke Segismundus gave
him 3 Turke’s head in a shield for armes and 300 Duckats
yeerely for a pension.’ Disdaining time and place (with
that daring which is the privilege of poets) in my tragedy,
Smith is made to perform similar exploits on the banks
of our Potomac and James’s River. Our ‘ ground-bait ’
verses ran thus : —
POCAHONTAS
Wearied arm and broken sword
Wage in vain the desperate fight ;
Round him press a countless horde,
He is but a single knight.
Hark ! a cry of triumph shrill
Through the wilderness resounds.
As, with twenty bleeding wounds.
Sinks the warrior, fighting still.
Now they heap the fatal pyre.
And the torch of death they light :
Ah ! ’tis hard to die of fire !
Who will shield the captive knight ?
Round the stake with fiendish cry
Wheel and dance the savage crowd,
Cold the victini’s mien and proud,
And his breast is bared to die.
POCAHONTAS
845
Who will shield the fearless heart ?
Who avert the murderous blade ?
From the throng, with sudden start.
See, there springs an Indian maid.
Quick she stands before the knight,
‘ Loose the chain, tmbind the ring,
I am daughter of the king.
And I claim the Indian right ! ’
Dauntlessly aside she flings
Lifted axe and thirsty knife ;
Fondly to his heart she clings,
And her bosom guards his life !
In the woods of Powhattan,
StiU ’tis told, by Indian fires.
How a daughter of their sires
Saved the captive Englishman.
I need not describe at length the plot of my tragedy, as
my children can take it down from the shelves any day
and peruse it for themselves. Nor shall I, let me add,
be in a hurry to offer to read it again to my young folks,
since Captain Miles and the parson both chose to fall asleep
last Christmas, when, at mamma’s request, I read aloud
a couple of acts. But any person having a moderate
acquaintance with plays and novels can soon, out of the
above sketch, fill out a picture to his liking. An Indian
king ; a loving princess, and her attendant, in love with
the British captain’s servant ; a traitor in the English
fort ; a brave Indian warrior, himself entertaining an
unhappy passion for Pocahontas ; a medicine-man and
priest of the Indians (very well played by Palmer), capable
of every treason, stratagem, and crime, and bent upon the
torture and death of the English prisoner ; — ^these, with the
accidents of the wilderness, the war-dances and cries (which
Gumbo had learned to mimic very accurately from the
red-people at home), and the arrival of the English fleet,
with allusions to the late glorious victories in Canada,
and the determination of Britons ever to rule and conquer
in America, some of us not unnaturally thought might
contribute to the success of our tragedy.
But I have mentioned the ill omens which preceded the
day; the difficulties which a peevish, and jealous, and timid
management threw in the way of the piece, and the violent
prejudice which was felt against it in certain high quarters.
What wonder then, I ask, that Pocahontas should have
846
THE VIRGINIANS
turned out not to be a victory ? I laugh to scorn the
malignity of the critics who found fault with the perform-
ance. Pretty critics, forsooth, who said that Carpezan
was a masterpiece, whilst a far superior and more elaborate
work received only their sneers ! I insist on it that Hagan
acted his part so admirably that a certain actor and manager
of the theatre might well be jealous of him ; and that, but
for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded.
The order had been given that the play should not succeed;
so at least Sampson declared to me. " The house swarmed
with Macs, by George, and they should have the galleries
washed with brimstone,’ the honest fellow swore, and
always vowed that Mr. Garrick himself would not have
had the piece succeed for the world ; and was never in
such a rage as during that grand scene in the second act,
where Smith (poor Hagan) being bound to the stake,
Pocahontas comes and saves him, and when the whole house
was thrilling with applause and sympathy.
Anybody who has curiosity sulB&cient, may refer to the
pubhshed tragedy (in the octavo form, or in the subsequent
splendid quarto edition of my Collected Works, and Poems
Original and Translated), and say whether the scene is
without merit, whether the verses are not elegant, the
language rich and noble ? One of the causes of the failure
was my actual fidelity to history, I had copied myself
at the Museum, and tinted neatly, a figure of Sir Walter
Raleigh in a frill and beard ; and (my dear Theo giving
some of her mother’s best lace for the ruff) we dressed
Hagan accurately after this drawing, and no man could
look better. Miss Pritchard, as Pocahontas, I dressed
too as a red Indian, having seen enough of that costume
in my own experience at home. Will it be believed the
house tittered when she first appeared ? They got used
to her, however, but just at the moment when she rushes
into the prisoner’s arms, and a number of people were
actually in tears, a fellow in the pit bawls out, ‘ Bedad !
Here’s the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen’s Head ; ’
on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the
pit, breaking out with fitful explosions during the remainder
of the performance. As the wag in Mr. Sheridan’s amusing
Critic admirably says about the morning guns, the play-
wrights were not content with one of them, but must
fire two or three ; so with this wretched pot-house joke
POCAHONTAS
847
of the Belle Savage (the ignorant people not knowing
that Pocahontas herself was the very Belle Sauvage from
whom the tavern took its name!). My friend of the pit
repeated it ad nauseam during the performance, and as
each new character appeared, saluted him by the name
of some tavern — ^for instance, the English governor (with
a long beard) he called the ‘ Goat and Boots ’ ; his lieutenant,
(Barker) whose face certainly was broad, the ‘ Bull and
Mouth ’, and so on ! And the curtain descended amidst
a shrill storm of whistles and hisses, which especially
assailed poor Hagan every time he opened his lips. Sampson
saw Master Will in the green boxes, with some pretty
acquaintances of his, and has no doubt that the treacherous
scoundrel was one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy.
‘ I would have flung him over into the pit,’ the faithful
fellow said (and Sampson was man enough to execute
his threat), ^ but I saw a couple of Mr. NTadab’s followers
prowhng about the lobby, and was obliged to sheer off.’
And so the eggs we had counted on selling at market
were broken, and our poor hopes lay shattered before us I
I looked in at the house from the stage before the curtain
was lifted, and saw it pretty well filled, especially remarking
Mr. Johnson in the front boxes, in a laced waistcoat, having
his friend Mr. Reynolds by his side ; the latter could not
hear, and the former could not see, and so they came
good naturedly d deux to form an opinion of my poor
tragedy. I could see Lady Maria (I knew the hood she
wore) in the lower gallery, where she once more had the
opportunity of sitting and looking at her beloved actor
performing a principal character in a piece. As for Theo,
she fairly owned that, unless I ordered her, she had rather
not be present, nor had I any such command to give,
for, if things went wrong, I knew that to see her suffer
would be intolerable pain to myself, and so acquiesced in
her desire to keep away.
Being of a pretty equanimous disposition, and, as I
flatter myself, able to bear good or evil fortune without
disturbance ; I myself, after taking a light dinner at the
‘Bedford’, went to the theatre a short while before the
commencement of the play, and proposed to remain there,
until the defeat or victory was decided. I own now,
I could not help seeing which way the fate of the day was
likely to turn, There was something gloomy and disas-
848
THE VIEGINIANS
trous in the general aspect of all things around. Miss
Pritchard had the headache : the barb^er who brought
home Hagan’s wig had powdered it like a wretch : amongst
the gentlemen and ladies in the green-room, I saw none
but doubtful faces, and the manager (a very flippant
not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who
liimseK on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a
funeral) had the insolence to say to me, ‘ For Heaven’s
sake, Warrington, go and get a glass of punch at the
Bedford ”, and don’t frighten us all here by your dismal
countenance ! ’ ‘ Sir,’ says I, ‘ I have a right, for flve
shiUings, to comment upon your face, but I never gave
you any authority to make remarks upon mine.’ ‘ Sir,’ says
he in a pet, ‘ I most heartily wish I had never seen your
face at all ! ’ ^ Yours, sir I ’ said I, ‘ has often amused
me greatly ; and when painted for Abel Drugger is exceed-
ingly comic ’ — ^and indeed I have always done Mr. G.
the justice to think that in low comedy he was unrivalled.
I made him a bow, and walked ofl to the coffee-house,
and for five years after never spoke a word to the gentle-
man, when he apologized to me, at a nobleman’s house
where we chanced to meet. I said I had utterly forgotten
the circumstance to which he alluded, and that, on the
first night of a play, no doubt author and manager were
flurried alike. And added, ‘ After all, there is no shame
in not being made for the theatre. Mr. Garrick — ^you
were.’ A compliment with which he appeared to be as
well pleased as I intended he should.
Fidus Achates ran over to me at the end of the first
act to say that all things were going pretty well ; though
he confessed to the titter in the house upon Miss Pritchard’s
first appearance, dressed exactly hke an Indian princess.
‘ I cannot help it, Sampson,’ said I (filhng him a bumper
of good punch), ' if Indians are dressed so.’
‘ Why,’ says he, ‘ would you have had Caractacus painted
blue like an ancient Briton, or Bonduca with nothing
but a cow-skin ? ’ — And indeed it may be that the fidelity
to history was the cause of the ridicule cast on my tragedy,
in which case I, for one, am not ashamed of its defeat.
After the second act, my aide de camp came from the
field with dismal news indeed. I don’t know how it is
that, nervous before action in disaster I become pretty
* The writer seems to contradict himself here, having just boasted
POCAHONTAS
849
cool and cheerful. ‘ Are things going ill ? ’ says I. I call
for my reckoning, put on my hat, and march to the theatre
as calmly as if I was going to dine at the Temple ; fidus
Achates walking by my side, pressing my elbow, kicking
the link-boys out of the way, and crying, ‘ By George,
Mr, Warrington, you are a man of spirit — a Trojan, sir ! ’
So, there were men of spirit in Troy ; but alas ! fate was
too strong for them.
At any rate, no man can say that I did not bear my
misfortune with calmness : I could no more help the
.clamour and noise of the audience than a captain can help
the howling and hissing of the storm in which his ship
goes down. But I was determined that the rushing
waves and broken masts should impavidum ferient, and
flatter myself that I bore my calamity without flinching.
‘ Not Regulus, my dear madam, could step into his barrel
more coolly,’ Sampson said to my wife. ’Tis unjust
to say of men of the parasitic nature, that they are unfaith-
ful in misfortune. Whether I was prosperous or poor,
the wild parson was equally true and friendly, and shared
our crust as eagerly as ever he had partaken of our better
fortune,
I took my place on the stage, whence I could see the
actors of my poor piece, and a portion of the audience
who condemned me. I suppose the performers gave me
a wide berth, out of pity for me. I must say that I think
I was as little moved as any spectator ; and that no one
would have judged from my mien that I was the unlucky
hero of the night.
But my dearest Theo, when I went home, looked so pale
and white, that I saw from the dear creature’s countenance
that the knowledge of my disaster had preceded my return.
Spencer, Sampson, Cousin Hagan, and Lady Maria w^ere
to come after the play, and congratulate the author,
God wot ! (Poor Miss Pritchard was engaged to us like-
wise, but sent word that I must understand that she
was a great deal too unwell to sup that night.) My friend
the gardener of Bedford House had given my wife his best
flowers to decorate her little table. There they were ; the
poor little painted standards — and the battle lost : I had
of possessing a pretty equanimons disposition. He was probably
mistaken in his own estimate of himself, as other folks have been
besides, — En.
850
THE VIRGINIANS
borne the defeat well enough, but as I looked at the sweet
pale face of the wife across the table, and those artless
trophies of welcome which she had set up for her hero,
I confess my courage gave way, and my heart felt a pang
almost as keen as any that ever has smitten it.
Our meal, it may be imagined, was dismal enough,
nor was it rendered much gayer by the talk we strove
to carry on. Old Mrs. Hagan was, luckily, very ill at this
time ; and her disease, and the incidents connected with
it, a great blessing to us. Then we had his Majesty’s
approaching marriage, about which there was a talk.
(How well I remember the most futile incidents of the day :
down to a tune which a carpenter was whistling by my
side at the playhouse, just before the dreary curtain fell !)
Then we talked about the death of good Mr. Richardson,
the author of Pamela and Clarissa, whose works we all
admired exceedingly. And as we talked about Clarissa,
my wife took on herself to wipe her eyes once or twice,
and say, faintly, ‘ You know, my love, mamma and I
could never help crying over that dear book. Oh, my dear-
est, dearest mother ’ (she adds), ‘ how I wish she could
be with me now ! ’ This was an occasion for more open
tears, for of course a young lady may naturally weep for
her absent mother. And then we mixed a gloomy bowl
with Jamaica limes, and drank to the health of his excellency
the governor : and then, for a second toast, I filled a bumper,
and with a smiling face, drank to ‘ our better fortune ’ !
This was too much. The two women flung themselves
into each other’s arms, and irrigated each other’s neck-
handkerchiefs with tears. ‘ Oh, Maria ! Is not — ^is not
my George good and kind ? ’ sobs Theo. ‘ Look at my
Hagan — ^how great, how godlike he was in his part ! ’
gasps Maria. ‘ It was a beastly cabal which threw him
over — and I could plunge this knife into Mr. Garrick’s
black heart — ^the o^ous little wretch ! ’ and she grasps
a weapon at her side. But throwing it presently down,
the enthusiastic creature rushes up to her lord and master,
flings her arms round him, and embraces him in the presence
of the little company.
I am not sure whether some one else did not do likewise.
We were all in a state of extreme excitement and enthusiasm.
In the midst of grief. Love the consoler appears amongst us,
and soothes us vdth such fond blandishments and tender
POCAHONTAS
851
caresses, that one scarce wishes the calaroity away. Two
or three days afterwards, on our birthday, a letter w^'as
brought me in my study, w^hich contained the following
lines : —
FEOM POCAHONTAS
Returning from the cruel fight
How pale and faint appears my knight I
He sees me anxious at his side ;
‘ Why seek, my love, your wounds to hide ?
Or deem your English girl afraid
To emulate the Indian maid ? ’
Be mine my husband’s grief to cheer.
In peril to be ever near ;
Whatever of ill or woe betide,
To bear it clinging at his side ;
The poisoned stroke of fate to ward.
His bosom with my own to guard ;
Ah 1 could it spare a pang to his.
It could not know a purer bliss I .
’Twould gladden as it felt the smart,
And thank the hand that flung the dart I
I do not say the verses are very good, but that I like
them as weU as if they were — and that the face of the
writer (whose sweet young voice I fancy I can hear as I
hum the lines), when I went into her drawing-room after
getting the letter, and when I saw her blushing and blessing
me — seemed to me more beautiful than any I can fancy
out of heaven.
852
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LXXXI
EES ANGTTSTA DOMI
iVE already described my present
feelings as an elderly gentleman,
regarding that rash jump into
matrimony, which I persuaded
my dear partner to take with
me when we were both scarce
out of our teens. As a man and
a father — ^with a due sense of
the necessity of mutton chops,
and the importance of paying
the baker — ^with a pack of
rash children round about us
who might be running off to
Scotland to-morrow, and plead-
ing papa’s and mamma’s ex-
ample for their impertinence,
I know that I ought to be very
cautious in narrating this early part of the married life of
George Warrington, Esquire, and Theodosia his wife —
to call out mea culpa, and put on a demure air, and, sitting
in my comfortable easy chair here, profess to be in a white
sheet and on the stool of repentance, offering myself up as
a warning to imprudent and hot-headed youth.
But, truth to say, that married life, regarding which
my dear relatives prophesied so gloomily, has disappointed
all those prudent and respectable people. It has had
its trials ; but I can remember them without bitterness —
its passionate griefs, of which time, by God’s kind ordinance,
has been the benign consoler — ^its days of poverty, which
we bore, who endured it, to the wonder of our sympathizing
relatives looking on — ^its precious rewards and blessings,
so great that I scarce dare to whisper them to this page ;
to speak of them, save with awful respect and to One Ear,
to which are offered up the prayers and thanks of all men.
To marry without a competence is wrong and dangerous,
no doubt, and a crime a^inst our social codes ; but do
not scores of thousands of our fellow-beings commit the
RES AUGUSTA DOMI
853
crime every year with no other trust but in Heaven, health,
and their labour. Are young people entering into the
married life not to take hope into account, nor dare to
begin their housekeeping until the cottage is completely
furnished, the cellar and larder stocked, the cupboard
full of plate, and the strong-box of money ? The increase
and multiplication of the world would stop, were the
laws which regulate the genteel part of it to be made
universal. Our gentlefolks tremble at the brink in their
silk stockings and pumps, and wait for whole years, until
they find a bridge or a gilt barge to carry them across ;
our poor do not fear to wet their bare feet, plant them
in the brook, and trust to fate and strength to bear them
over. Who would like to consign his daughter to poverty ?
Who would counsel his son to undergo the countless risks
of poor married hfe, to remove the beloved girl from
comfort and competence, and subject her to debt, misery,
privation, friendlessness, sickness, and the hundred gloomy
consequences of the res angusta domi ? I look at my own
wife and ask her pardon for having imposed a task so fraught
with pain and danger upon one so gentle. I think of the
trials she endured, and am thankful for them and for that
unfailing love and constancy with which God blessed her
and strengthened her to bear them all. On this question
of marriage, I am not a fair judge : my own was so impru-
dent and has been so happy, that I must not dare to give
young people counsel. I have endured poverty, but
scarcely ever found it otherwise than tolerable : had I not
undergone it, I never could have known the kindness of
friends, the delight of gratitude, the surprising joys and
consolations which sometimes accompany the scanty meal
and narrow fire, and cheer the long day’s labour. This
at least is certain, in respect of the lot of the decent poor,
that a great deal of superfluous pity is often thrown away
upon it. Good-natured fine folks, who sometimes stepped
out of the sunshine of their riches, into our narrow obscurity,
were blinded as it were, whilst we could see quite cheerfully
and clearly : they stumbled over obstacles which were
none to us : they were surprised at the resignation with
which we drank small-beer, and that we could heartily
say grace over such very cold mutton.
The good general, my father-in-law, had married his
Molly, when he was a subaltern of a foot regiment, and
854
THE VntGINIANS
had a purse scarce better filled than my own. They
had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though
my wife will never confess to this point) they had married,
as people could do in their young time, without previously
aslnng papa’s and mamma’s leave.* At all events, they were
so well pleased with their own good luck in matrimony,
that they did not grudge their children’s, and were by
no means frightened at the idea of any little hardships
which we in the course of our married life might be called
upon to undergo. And I suppose when I made my own
pecuniary statements to Mr. Lambert, I was anxious to
deceive both of us. Believing me to be master of a couple
of thousand pounds, he went to Jamaica quite easy in his
mind as to his darling daughter’s comfort and maintenance,
at least for some years to come. After paying the expenses
of his family’s outfit, the worthy man went away not much
richer than his son-in-law : and a few trinkets, and some
lace of Aunt Lambert’s, with twenty new guineas in a
purse which her mother and sisters made for her, were
my Theo’s marriage portion. But in valuing my stock,
I chose to count as a good debt a sum which my honoured
mother never could be got to acknowledge up to the day
when the resolute old lady was called to pay the last
debt of all. The sums I had disbursed for her, she urged,
were spent for the improvement and maintenance of the
estate which was to be mine at her decease. What money
she could spare was to be for my poor brother, who had
nothing, who would never have spent his own means had
he not imagined himself to be sole heir of the Virginian
property, as he wovM have been — ^the good lady took care
to emphasize this point in many of her letters —
but for a half-hour’s accident of birth. He was now
distinguishing himself in the service of his king and country.
To purchase his promotion was his mother’s, she should
suppose his brother’s duty ! When I had finished my
bar-studies and my dramatic amusements. Madam Esmond
informed me that I was welcome to return home and
take that place in our colony to which my birth entitled
me. This statement, she communicated to me more than
once through Mountain, and before the news of my marriage
had reached her.
* The Editor has looked through Burn’s Registers of Fleet Mar-
riages without finding the names of Martin Lambert and Mary Benson.
RES ANGUSTA DOMI
855
There is no need to recall her expressions of maternal
indignation when she was informed of the step I had taken.
On the pacification of Canada, my dear Harry asked for
leave of absence, and dutifully paid a visit to Virginia.
He wrote, describing his reception at home, and the splendid
entertainments which my mother made in honour of her
son. Castlewood, which she had not inhabited since our
departure for Europe, was thrown open again to our friends
of the colony; and the friend of Wolfe, and the soldier
of Quebec, was received by all our acquaintance with every
becoming honour. Some dismal quarrels, to be sure, ensued,
because my brother persisted in maintaining his friendship
with Colonel Washington, of Mount Vernon, whose praises
Harry never was tired of singing. Indeed I allow the
gentleman every virtue ; and in the struggles which
terminated so fatally for England a few years since, I can
admire as well as his warmest friends. General Washington’s
glorious constancy and success.
If these battles between Harry and our mother were
frequent, as, in his letters, he described them to be, I
wondered, for my part, why he should continue at home ?
One reason naturally suggested itself to my mind, which
I scarcely liked to communicate to Mrs. Warrington ;
for we had both talked over our dear little Hetty’s romantic
attachment for my brother, and wondered that he had
never discovered it. I need not say I suppose that my
gentleman had found some young lady at home more to
his taste than our dear Hester, and hence accounted for
his prolonged stay in Virginia.
Presently there came, in a letter from him, not a full
confession but an admission of this interesting fact. A
person was described, not named — a. Being all beauty and
perfection, like other young ladies under similar circum-
stances. My wife asked to see the letter ; I could not
help showing it, and handed it to her, with a very sad
face. To my surprise she read it, without exhibiting any
corresponding sorrow of her own.
‘ I have thought of this before, my love,’ I said. ‘ I feel
with you for your disappointment regarding poor Hetty.’
‘ Ah ! poor Hetty,’ says Theo, looking down at the
carpet.
‘ It would never have done,’ says I.
^ ‘ No — ^they would not have been happy,’ sighs Theo.
856
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ How strange he never should have found out her secret ! ’
I continued.
She looked me full in the face with an odd expression.
‘ Pray, what does that look mean ? ’ I asked.
‘ Nothing, my dear — ^nothing ! only I am not surprised ! ’
says Theo, blushing.
" What,’ I ask, " can there be another ? ’
‘ I am sure I never said so, George,’ says the lady hurriedly.
‘ But if Hetty has overcome her childish folly, ought we
not all to be glad ? Do you gentlemen suppose that you
only are to fall in love and grow tired, indeed ? ’
" What,’ I say, with a strange commotion of my mind,
‘ do you mean to tell me, Theo, that you ever cared for
any one but me ? ’
‘ Oh, George ! ’ she whimpers, ‘ when I was at school,
there was — ^there was one of the boys of Doctor Backhouse’s
school, who sat in the loft next to us ; and I thought he
had lovely eyes, and I was so shocked when I recognized
him behind the counter at Mr. Grigg’s, the mercer’s, when
I went to buy a cloak for baby, and I wanted to tell you,
my dear, and I didn’t know how ! ’
I went to see this creature with the lovely eyes, having
made my wife describe the fellow’s dress to me, and I saw
a little bandy-legged wretch in a blue camlet coat, with his
red hair tied with a dirty ribbon, about whom I forbore
■generously even to reproach my wife ; nor will she ever
know that I have looked at the fellow, until she reads the
confession in this page. If our wives saw us as we are,
I thought, would they love us as they do ? Are we as
much mistaken in them, as they in us ? I look into one
candid face at least, and think it never has deceived me.
Lest I should encourage my young people to an imitation
of my own imprudence, I will not tell them with how
small a capital Mrs. Theo and I commenced life. The
unfortunate tragedy brought us nothing; though the
reviewers, since its publication of late, have spoken not
unfavourably as to its merits, and Mr. Kemble himself
has done me the honour to commend it. Our kind friend
Lord Wrotham was for having the piece published by
subscription, and sent me a bank-note, with a request
that I would let him have a hundred copies for his friends ;
but I was always averse to that method of levying money,
and, preferring my poverty dne dote, locked up my manu-
BES ANGUSTA BOm
857
script, with my poor girl’s verses inserted at the first page,
I know not why the piece should have given such offence
at Court, except for the fact that an actor who had run
off with an earl’s daughter, performed a principal part
in the play ; but I was told that sentiments, which I had
put into the mouths of some of the Indian characters (who
were made to declaim against ambition, the British desire
of rule, and so forth) were pronounced dangerous and
unconstitutional ; so that the little hope of royal favour,
which I might have had, was quite taken away from me.
What was to be done ? A few months after the failure
of the tragedy, as I counted up the remains of my fortune
(the calculation was not long or difficult), I came to the
conclusion, that I must beat a retreat out of my pretty
apartments in Bloomsbury, and so gave warning to our
good landlady, informing her that my wife’s health required
that we should have lodgings in the country. But we went
no farther than Lambeth, our faithful Gumbo and Molly
following us ; and here, though as poor as might be, we were
waited on by a maid and a lackey in livery, like any folks
of condition. You may be sure kind relatives cried out
against our extravagance ; indeed, are they not the people
who find our faults out for us, and proclaim them to the
rest of the world ?
Returning home from London one day, whither I had
been on a visit to some booksellers, I recognized the family
arms and Kvery on a grand gilt chariot which stood before
a public-house near to our lodgings. A few loitering
inhabitants were gathered round the splendid vehicle, and
looking with awe at the footmen, resplendent in the sun,
and quaffing blazing pots of beer. I found my Lady
Castlewood sitting opposite to my wife in our httle apart-
ment (whence we had a very bright pleasant prospect
of the river, covered with barges and wherries, and the
ancient towers and trees of the archbishop’s palace and
garden), and Mrs. Theo, who has a very droll way of describ-
ing persons and scenes, narrated to me all the particulars
of , her ladyship’s conversation, when she took her leave.
‘ I have been here this ever-so-long,’ says the countess,
' gossiping with Cousin Theo, while you have been away
at the coffee-house, I dare say, making merry with your
friends, and drinking your punch and coffee. Guess she
must find it rather lonely here, with nothing to do but
858
THE VIRGINIANS
work them little caps and hem them frocks. Never mind,
dear ; reckon you’ll soon have a companion who will amuse
you when Cousin George is away at his coffee-house !
What a nice lodging you have got here, I do declare !
Our new house wMch we have took is twenty times as big,
and covered with gold from top to bottom : but I like
this quite as well. Bless you ! being rich is no better
than being poor. When we lived to Albany, and I did
most all the work myself, scoured the rooms, biled the
kettle, helped the wash, and all, I was just as happy as
I am now. We only had one old negro to keep the store.
Why don’t you sell Gumbo, Cousin George ? He ain’t
no use here idling and dawdling about, and making love
to the servant girl. Fogh ! guess they ain’t particular,
these English people ! ’ So she talked, rattling on with
perfect good humour, until her hour for departure came ;
when she produced a fine repeating watch, and said it
was time for her to pay a caU upon her Majesty at Bucking-
ham House. ‘ And mind you come to us, George,’ says
her ladyship, waving a little parting hand out of the gilt
coach. ‘ Theo and I have settled all about it.’
‘Here, at least,’ said I, when the laced footman had
clambered up behind the carriage, and our magnificent
little patroness had left us ; — ‘ here is one who is not afraid
of our poverty, nor ashamed to remember her own.’
‘ Ashamed ! ’ said Theo, resuming her lilhputian needle-
work. ‘ To do her justice, she would make herself at home
in any kitchen or palace in the world. She has given me
and Molly twenty lessons in housekeeping. She says,
when she was at home to Albany, she roasted, baked,
swept the house, and milked the cow.’ (Madam Theo
pronounced the word cow archly in our American way,
and imitated her ladyship’s accent very divertingly.)
‘ And she has no pride,’ I added. ‘ It was good-natured
of her to ask us to dine with her and my lord. When will
Uncle Warrington ever think of offering us a crust again,
or a glass of his famous beer ? ’
‘Yes, it was not ill-natured to invite us,’ says Theo,
slyly. ‘ But, my dear, you don’t know all the conditions ! ’
Amd then my v^e, still imitating the countess’s manner,
laughingly informed me what these conditions were.
‘ She took out her pocket-book, and told me,’ says Theo,
‘ what days she was engaged abroad and at home. On
RES ANGUSTA DOMI
859
Monday she received a duke and a duchess, wth several
other members of my lord’s house, and their ladies. On
Tuesday came more earls, two bishops, and an ambassador ;
“ of course you won’t come on them days ? ” says the
countess ; “ now you are so poor, you know, that fine
company ain’t no good for you. Lord bless you ! father
never dines on our company days ! he don’t like it ; he
takes a bit of cold meat anyways.” On which,’ says
Theo, laughing, ‘ I told her that Mr. Warrington did not
care for any but the best of company, and proposed that
she should ask us on some day when the Archbishop of
Canterbury dined with her, and his grace must give us a
lift home in his coach to Lambeth. And she is an econom-
ical little person, too,’ continues Theo : ‘ “ I thought of bring-
ing with me some of my baby’s caps and things, which Ms
lordsMp has outgrown ’em, but they may be wanted again,
you know, my dear.” And so we lose that addition to
our wardrobe,’ says Theo, smiling, ‘ and Molly and I must
do our best without her ladyship’s charity. “ When people
are poor, they are poor,” the countess said, with her usual
outspokenness, “ and must get on the best they can. What
we shall do for that poor Maria, goodness only knows !
we can’t ask her to see us as we can you, though you are
so poor : but an earl’s daughter to marry a play-actor 1 la,
my dear, it’s dreadful ; Ms Majesty and the princess have
both spoken of it I Every other noble family in this king-
dom as has ever heard of it pities us ; though I have
a plan for helping those poor unhappy people, and have
sent down Simons, my groom of the chambers, to tell
them on it.” This plan was, that Hagan, who had kept
almost all Ms terms at Dublin College, should return
thither and take his degree, and enter into holy orders,
“ when we will provide him with a chaplaincy at home,
you know,” Lady Castlewood added.’ And I may mention
here, that this benevolent plan was executed a score of
months later ; when I was enabled myself to be of service
to Mr. Hagan, who was one of the kindest and best of
our friends during our own time of want and distress.
Castlewood then executed Ms promise loyally enough,
got orders and a colonial appointment for Hagan, who
distinguished himself both as soldier and preacher, as
we shall presently hear ; but not a guinea did his lordship
spare to aid either Ms sister or his kinsman in their trouble.
860
THE VIRGINIANS
I never asked him, thank Heaven, to assist me in my
own ; though, to do him justice, no man could express
himself more amiably, and with a joy which I believe
was quite genuine, when my days of poverty were ended.
As for my Uncle Warrington, and his virtuous wife
and daughters, let me do them justice likewise, and declare
that throughout my period of trial, their sorrow at my
poverty was consistent and unvarying. I still had a few
acquaintances who saw them, and of course (as friends
wiU) brought me a report of their opinions and conversation ;
and I never could hear that my relatives had uttered one
single good word about me or my wife. They spoke even
of my tragedy as a crime — 1 was accustomed to hear that
sufficiently maligned — of the author as a miserable repro-
bate, for ever reding about Grub Street, in rags and squalor.
They held me out no hand of help. My poor wife might
cry in her pain, but they had no twopence to bestow
upon her. They went to church a half-dozen times in
the week. They subscribed to many public charities.
Their tribe was known eighteen hundred years ago, and
will flourish as long as men endure. They will stiU thank
Heaven that they are not as other folks are ; and leave
the wounded and miserable to other succour,
I don’t care to recall the dreadful doubts and anxieties
which began to beset me ; the plan after plan which I
tried, and in which I failed, for procuring work and adding
to our dwindling stock of money. I bethought me of my
friend Mr. Johnson, and when I think of the eager kindness
with which he received me, am ashamed of some pert
speeches which I own to have made regarding his manners
and behaviour. I told my story and difficulties to him,
the circumstance of my marriage, and the prospects before
me. He would not for a moment admit they were gloomy,
or, si male nunc, that they would continue to be so. — I had
before me the chances, certainly very slender, of a place
in England ; the inheritance which must be mine in the
course of nature, or at any rate would fall to the heir
I was expecting. I had a small stock of money for present
actual necessity — ^a possibility, ‘ though, to be free with
you, sir ’ (says he), 'after the performance of your tragedy,
I doubt whether nature has endowed you with those
peculiar qualities which are necessary for achieving a
remarkable literary success’ — ^and finally a submission to the
RES ANGUSTA DOMI
863
maternal rule, and a return to Virginia, where plenty and
a home were always ready for me. ‘ Why, sir I ’ he cried,
‘ such a sum as you mention would have been a fortune
to me when I began the world, and my friend Mr. Gold-
smith would set up a coach-and-six on it. With youth,
hope, to-day, and a couple of hundred pounds in cash —
no yoimg fellow need despair. Think, sir, you have a year
at least before you^ and who knows what may chance
between now and theUo Why, sir, your relatives here
may provide for you, or you may succeed to your Virginian
property, or you may come into a fortune ! " I did not in
the course of that year, but he did. My Lord Bute gave
Mr. Johnson a pension, which set all Grub Street in a fury
against the recipient, who, to be sure, had published his
own not very flattering opinion upon pensions and pen-
sioners.
Nevertheless, he did not altogether discourage my
literary projects, promised to procure me work from the
booksellers, and faithfully performed that kind promise.
* But,’ says he, ‘ sir, you must not appear amongst them
in forma pauperis. Have you never a friend’s coach in
which we can ride to see them ? You must put on your
best laced hat and waistcoat ; and we must appear, sir,
as if you were doing them a favour.’ This stratagem
answered, and procured me respect enough at the first
visit or two : but when the booksellers knew that I wanted
to be paid for my work, their backs refused to bend any
more, and they treated me with a familiarity which I could
ill stomach. I overheard one of them, who had been
a footman, say — ' Oh, it’s Pocahontas, is it ? let him
wait.’ Ajid he told his boy to say as much to me. ‘ Wait,
sir ! ’ says I, fuming with rage and putting my head into
his parlour, ‘ I’m not accustomed to waiting, but I have
heard you are.’ And I strode out of the shop into Pall
Mall in a mighty fluster.
And yet Mr. D. was in the right. I came to him, if
not to ask a favour, at any rate to propose a bargain,
and surely it was my business to wait his time and con-
venience. In more fortunate days I asked the gentleman’s
pardon, and the kind author of The Muse in Livery was
instantly appeased.
I was more prudent, or Mr. Johnson more fortunate,
in an application elsewhere, and Mr. Johnson procured
864
THE VIRGINIANS
me a little work from the booksellers in translating from
foreign languages, of which I happen to know two or
three. By a hard day’s labour I could earn a few shillings ;
so few that a week’s work would hardly bring me a guinea :
and that was flung to me with insolent patronage by the
low hucksters who employed me. I can put my finger
upon two or three magazine-articles written at this period,*
and paid for with a few wretched shillings, which papers
as I read them awaken in me the keenest pangs of bitter
remembrance. I recall the doubts and fears which agitated
me, see the dear wife nursing her infant and looking up
into my face with hypocritical smiles that vainly try
to mask her alarm : the struggles of pride are fought over
again : the wounds under which I smarted, reopen. There
are some acts of injustice committed against me which
I don’t know how to forgive ; and which, whenever I think
of them, awaken in me the same feelings of revolt and
indignation. The gloom and darkness gather over me —
till they are relieved by a reminiscence of that love and
tenderness which through all gloom and darkness have
been my light and consolation.
* Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, says he remembers
a book, containing his grandfather’s book-plate, in which were
pasted various extracts from reviews and newspapers in an old
type, and lettered outside Les Chatnes de VEsclavage. These were
no doubt the contributions above mentioned ; but the volume has
not been found, either in the town house or in the library at War-
rington Manor. The Editor, by the way, is not answerable for
a certain inconsistency, which may be remarked in the narrative.
The writer says, p. 852, that he speaks * without bitterness ’ of past
times, and presently falls into a fury with them. The same manner
of forgiving our enemies is not uncommon in the present century.
#
865
CHAPTER LXXXII
MILES’S MOIDORB
ITTLE Miles made his appearance
in this world within a few days
of the gracious prince who
commands his regiment. Illu-
minations and cannonading
saluted the royal George’s birth,
multitudes were admitted to see
him as he lay behind a gilt
railing at the Palace with noble
nurses watching over him. Few
nurses guarded the cradle of
our little prince : no courtiers,
no faithful retainers saluted it,
except our trusty Gumbo and
kind Molly, who to be sure
loved and admired the little
heir of my poverty as loyally
as our hearts could desire. Why was our boy not named
George like the other paragon just mentioned, and like
his father ? I gave him the name of a little scapegrace of
my family, a name which many generations of Warringtons
had borne likewise ; but my poor little Miles’s love and
kindness touched me at a time when kindness and love
were rare from those of my own blood, and Theo and
I agreed that our child should be called after that single
little friend of my paternal race.
We wrote to acquaint our royal parents with the auspicious
event, and bravely inserted the child’s birth in the Daily
Advertiser, and the place, Church Street, Lambeth, where
he was born. ‘ My dear,’ says Aunt Bernstein, writing
to me in reply to my announcement, ‘ how could you
point out to all the world that you live in such a trou
as that in which you have buried yourself ? I kiss the
little mamma, and send a remembrance for the child.’
This remembrance was a fine silk coverlid, with a lace
edging fit for a prince. It was not very useful : the
price of the lace would have served us much better, but
VIRGINIANS F f
866
THE VIRGINIANS
Theo and Molly were delighted with the present, and my
eldest son’s cradle had a cover as fine as any nobleman’s.
Good Dr. Heberden came over several times to visit
my wife, and see that all things went well. He knew
and recommended to us a surgeon in the vicinage, who
took charge of her ; luckily, my dear patient needed little
care, beyond that which our landlady and her own trusty
attendant could readily afiord her. Again our humble
precinct was adorned with the gilded apparition of Lady
Castle wood’s chariot wheels ; she brought a pot of jelly,
which she thought Theo might like, and which, no doubt,
had been served at one of her ladyship’s banquets on a
previous day. And she told us of all the ceremonies at
Court, and of the splendour and festivities attending the
birth of the august heir to the crown. Our good Mr.
Johnson happened to pay me a visit on one of those days
when my lady countess’s carriage fiamed up to our little
gate. He was not a little struck by her magnificence,
and made her some bows, which were more respectful
than graceful. She called me cousin very affably, and
helped to transfer the present of jelly from her silver
dish into our crockery pan with much benignity. The
doctor tasted the sweetmeat, and pronounced it to be
excellent. ‘ The great, sir,’ says he, ‘ are fortunate in
every way. They can engage the most skilful practitioners
of the ordinary art, as they can assemble the most amiable
wits round their table. If, as you think, sir, and, from
the appearance of the dish your suggestion at least is
plausible, this sweetmeat may have appeared already
at his lordship’s table, it has been there in good company.
It has quivered under the eyes of celebrated beauties,
it has been tasted by ruby lips, it has divided the attention
of the distinguished company, with fruits, tarts, and creams,
which I make no doubt were like itself delicious.’ And
so saying, the good doctor absorbed a considerable portion
of Lady Castlewood’s benefaction ; though as regards
the. epithet delicious I am bound to say, that my poor
wife, after tasting the jelly, put it away from her as not
to her hking ; and Molly, flinging up her head, declared
it was mouldy.
My boy enjoyed at least the privilege of having an
earl’s daughter for his godmother ; for this office was per-
formed by his cousin, our poor Lady Maria, whose kindness
MILES’S MOIDOEE
and attention to the mother and the infant were
beyond all praise ; and who, having lost her own solitary
chance for maternal happiness, yearned over our child
in a manner not a little touching to behold. Captain
Miles is a mighty fine gentleman, and his uniforms of the
Prince’s Hussars, as splendid as any that ever bedizened
a soldier of fashion ; but he hath too good a heart, and
is too true a gentleman, let us trust, not to be thankful
when he remembers that his owm infant limbs were dressed
in some of the little garments which had been prepared
for the poor player’s child. Sampson christened him in
that very chapel in Southwark where our marriage ceremony
had been performed. Never were the words of the Prayer-
book more beautifully and impressively read than by the
celebrant of the service ; except at its end, when his voice
failed him, and he and the rest of the little congregation
were fain to wipe their eyes. ‘ Mr. Garrick himself, sir,’
says Hagan, ‘ could not have read those words so nobly.
I am sure little innocent never entered the world accom-
panied by wishes and benedictions more tender and sincere.’
And now I have not told how it chanced that the captain
came by his name of Miles. A couple of days before
his christening, when as yet, I believe, it was intended
that our firstborn should bear his father’s name, a little
patter of horse’s hoofs comes galloping up to our gate ;
and who should pull at the bell but young Miles, our cousin ?
I fear he had disobeyed his parents when he galloped
away on that undutiful journey.
‘ You know,’ says he, ‘ Cousin Harry gave me my little
horse : and I can’t help liking you, because you are so like
Harry, and because they are always saying things of you
at home, and it’s a shame : and I have brought my whistle
and coral that my godmamma Lady Suckling gave me,
for your little boy ; and if you’re so poor, Cousin George,
here’s my gold moidore, and it’s worth ever so much,
and it’s no use to me, because I mayn’t spend it, you know.’
We took the boy up to Theo in her room (he mounted
the stair in his little tramping boots, of which he was very
proud) ; and Theo kissed him, and thanked him ; and his
moidore has been in her purse from that day.
My mother, writing through her ambassador as usual,
informed me of her royal surprise and displeasure on
learning that my son had been christened Miles — a name
870
THE VIEGINIANS
not known, at least in the Esmond family. I did not
care to tell the reason at the time ; but when, in after-years,
I told Madam Esmond how my boy come by his name,
I saw a tear roll down her wrinkled cheek, and I heard
afterwards that she had asked Gumbo many questions
about the boy who gave his name to our Miles : our Miles
Gloriosus of Pall Mall, Valenciennes, Almack’s, Brighton.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
TBOUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
our early days at home, when
Harry and I used to be so undutiful
to our tutor, who would have
thought that Mr. Esmond Warring-
ton of Virginia would turn Bear-
leader himself ? My mother (when
we came together again) never
could be got to speak directly of
this period of my life ; but would
allude to it as ‘ that terrible time,
my love, which I can’t bear to
think of ’, ‘ those dreadful years
when there was difference between
us’, and so forth, and though my
pupil, a worthy and grateful man,
sent me out to Jamestown several
barrels of that liquor by which his great fortune was made.
Madam Esmond spoke of him as ‘your friend in England ’,
‘your wealthy Lambeth friend’, &c., but never by his
name ; nor did she ever taste a drop of his beer. We
brew our own too at Warrington Manor, but our good
Mr. Poker never fails to ship to Ipswich every year a couple
of butts of his entire. His son is a young sprig of fashion,
and has married an earl’s daughter, the father is a very
worthy and kind gentleman, and it is to the luck of making
his acquaintance that I owe the receipt of some of the
most welcome guineas that ever I received in my life.
It was not so much the sum, as the occupation and hope
given me by the office of governor, which I took on myself.
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
871
which were then so precious to me. Mr. F.’s Brewery
(the site has since been changed) then stood near to Pedlar’s
Acre in Lambeth : and the surgeon who attended my
wife in her confinement, likewise took care of the wealthy
brewer’s family. He was a Bavarian, originally named
Voelker. Mr. Lance the surgeon, I suppose, made him
acquainted with my name and history. The worthy
doctor would smoke many a pipe of Virginia in my garden,
and had conceived an attachment for me and my family.
He brought his patron to my house : and when Mr. F.
found that I had a smattering of his language, and could
sing ‘ Prinz Eugen, the noble Ritter ’ (a song that my grand-
father had brought home from the Marlborough Wars),
the German conceived a great friendship for me : his
lady put her chair and her chariot at Mrs. Warrington’s
service ; his little daughter took a prodigious fancy to
our baby (and to do him justice, the captain, who is as
ugly a fellow now as ever wore a queue,* was beautiful
as an infant) : and his son and heir, Master Foker, being
much maltreated at Westminster School because of his
father’s profession of brewer, the parents asked if I would
take charge of him ; and paid me a not insufficient sum
for superintending his education.
Mr. F. was a shrewd man of business, and as he and his
family really interested themselves in me and mine, I laid
all my pecuniary affairs pretty unreservedly before him ;
and my statement, he was pleased to say, augmented the
respect and regard which he felt for me. He laughed
at our stories of the aid which rny noble relatives
had given me — ^my aunt’s coverlid, my Lady Castle-
wood’s mouldy jelly, Lady Warrington’s contemptuous
treatment of us. But he wept many tears over the story
of little Miles’s moidore ; and as for Sampson and Hagan,
‘I wow,’ says he, ‘dey shall have so much beer als ever
dey can drink.’ He sent his wife to call upon Lady Maria,
and treated her with the utmost respect and obsequiousness
whenever she came to visit him. It was with Mr. Foker
that Lady Maria stayed when Hagan went to Dublin to
complete his college terms ; and the good brewer’s purse
also ministered to our friend’s wants and supplied his
outfit.
* The very image of the Squire at 30, everybody says so. — M. W.
(Note in the M8,)
872
THE VIRGINIANS
When Mr. Foker came fully to know my own affairs
and position, lie was pleased to speak of me with terms
of enthusiasm, and as if my conduct showed some extra-
ordinary virtue. I have said how my mother saved money
for Harry, and how the two were in my debt. But when
Harry spent money, he spent it fancying it to be his;
Madam Esmond never could be made to understand she
was dealing hardly with me — ^the money was paid and
gone, and there "was an end of it. Now, at the end of
'62, 1 remember Harry sent over a considerable remittance
for the purchase of his promotion, begging me at the same
time to remember that he was in my debt, and to draw
on his agents if I had any need. He did not know how
great the need was, or how my little capital had been
swallowed.
Well, to take my brother’s money would delay his pro-
motion, and I naturally did not draw on him, though
I own I was tempted ; nor, knowing my dear General
Lambert’s small means, did I care to impoverish him by
asking for supplies. These simple acts of forbearance my
worthy brewer must choose to consider as instances of
exalted virtue. And what does my gentleman do but
write privately to my brother in America, lauding me and
my wife as the most admirable of human beings, and call
upon Madame de Bernstein, who never told me of his
visit indeed, but who, I perceived about this time, treated
us with singular respect and gentleness, that surprised me
in one whom I could not but consider as selfish and worldly.
In after-days I remember asking him how he had gained
admission to the baroness ? He laughed ; ‘ De baroness ! ’
says he, ‘ I knew de baron when he was a waht at Munich,
and I was a brewer-apprentice.’ I think our family had
best not be too curious about our uncle the baron.
Thus, the part of my life which ought to have been
most melancholy was in truth made pleasant by many
friends, happy circumstances, and strokes of lucky fortune.
The bear I led was a docile little cub, and danced to my
piping very readily. Better to lead him about, than to
hang round booksellers’ doors, or wait the pleasure or
caprice of managers ! My wife and I, during our exile,
as we may call it, spent very many pleasant evenings with
these kind friends and benefactors. Nor were we without
intellectual enjoyments ; Mrs. Foker and Mrs. Warrington
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
873
sang finely together ; and, sometimes when I was in the
mood, I read my own play of Pocahontas to this friendly
audience, in a manner better than Hagan’s own, Mr. Foker
was pleased to say.
After that little escapade of Miles Warrington, junior,
I saw nothing of him, and heard of my paternal relatives
but rarely. Sir Miles was assiduous at Court (as I believe
he would have been at Nero’s), and I laughed one day
when Mr. Foker told me that he had heard on ’Change
" that they were going to make my uncle a Beer.’ — A
Beer ? ’ says I in wonder. ‘ Can’t you understand de vort,
ven I say it,’ says the testy old gentleman. " Veil, veil,
a Lort ! ’ Sir Miles indeed was the obedient humble
servant of the minister, whoever he might be. I am
surprised he did not speak English with a Scotch accent
during the first favourite’s brief reign. I saw him and his
wife coming from Court, when Mrs. Claypool was presented
to her Majesty on her marriage. I had my little boy on
my shoulder. My uncle and aunt stared resolutely at me
from their gilt coach window. The footmen looked blank
over their nosegays. Had I worn the Fairy’s cap, and
been invisible, my father’s brother could not have passed
me with less notice.
We did not avail ourselves much, or often, of that queer
invitation of Lady Castlew^ood, to go and drink tea and sup
. with her ladyship, when there was no other company. Old
Van den Bosch, however shrewd his intellect and great his
skill in making a fortune, was not amusing in conversation,
except to his daughter, who talked household and City
matters, bulling and bearing, raising and selling farming
stock, and so forth, quite as keenly and shrewdly as her
father. Nor was my Lord Castlewood often at home, or
much missed by his wife when absent, or very much at
ease in the old father’s company. The countess told all
this to my wife in her simple way. ‘ Guess,’ says she, ‘ my
lord and father don’t pull well together nohow. Guess my
lord is always wanting money, and father keeps the key
of the box : and quite right, too. If he could have the
fingering of all our money, my lord would soon make
away with it, and then w^hat’s to become of our noble
family ? We pay everything, my dear, except play debts,
and them we won’t have nohow. We pay cooks, horses,
wine merchants, tailors, and everybody — and lucky for
F f 3
874
THE VIRGINIANS
them too— reckon my lord wouldn’t pay ’em ! And we
always take care that he has a guinea in his pocket, and
goes out like a real nobleman. What that man do owe
to us ; what he did before we come — gracious goodness
only knows ! Me and father does our best to make him
respectable : but it’s no easy job, my dear. Law ! he’d
melt the plate, only father keeps the key of the strong-
room ; and when we go to Castlewood my father travels
with me, and papa is armed too, as well as the people.’
‘ Gracious Heavens ! ’ cries my wife, " your ladyship
does not mean to say, you suspect your own husband of
a desire to . ^
‘ To what ? — Oh, no, nothing, of course ! And I would'
trust our brother Will with untold money, wouldn’t I ?
As much as I’d trust the cat with the cream-pan ! I tell
you, my dear, it’s not all pleasure being a woman of rank
and fashion : and if I have bought a countess’s coronet,
I have paid a good price for it — ^that I have ! ’
And so had my Lord Castlewood paid a large price for
having his estate freed from incumbrances, his houses and
stables furnished, and his debts discharged. He was the
slave of the little wife and her father. No wonder the old
man’s society was not pleasant to the poor victim, and
that he gladly slunk away from his own fine house, to
feast at the club when he had money, or at least to any
society save that which he found at home. To lead a bear,
as I did, was no very pleasant business to be sure : to
wait in a bookseller’s ante-room until it should please his
honour to finish his dinner and give me audience, was
sometimes a hard task for a man of my name and with
iny pride ; but would I have exchanged my poverty against
Castlewood’s ignominy, or preferred his miserable depen-
dence to my own ? At least I earned my wage, such as it
was ; and no man can say that I ever flattered my patrons
or was servile to them ; or indeed, in my dealings with
them, was otherwise than sulky, overbearing, and, in a
word, intolerable.
Now there was a certain person with whom Fate had
thrown me into a life-partnership, who bore her poverty
with such a smiling sweetness and easy grace, that niggard
Fortune relented before her, and, like some savage Ogre
in the fairy tales, melted at the constant goodness and
cheerfulness of that uncomplaining, artless, innocent crea-
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS 875
ture. However poor she waa, all who knew her saw that
here was a fine lady ; and the little tradesmen and humble
folks round about us treated her with as much respect as
the richest of our neighbours. ^ I think, my dear,’ says
good-natured Mrs. Foker, when they rode out in the latter’s
chariot, ‘ you look like the mistress of the carriage, and
I only as your maid.’ Our landladies adored her ; the
tradesfolk executed her little orders as eagerly as if a
duchess gave them, or they were to make a fortune by
waiting on her. I have thought often of the lady in
Comus, and how, through all the rout and rabble, she
moves, entirely serene and pure.
Several times, as often as we chose indeed, the good-
natured parents of my young bear lent us their chariot to
drive abroad or to caU on the few friends we had. If
I must tell the truth, we drove once to the ‘ Protestant
Hero ’ and had a syllabub in the garden there : and the
hostess would insist upon calling my wife her ladyship
during the whole afternoon. We also visited Mr. Johnson,
and took tea with him (the ingenious Mr. Goldsmith was
of the company) ; the doctor waited upon my wife to her
coach. But our most frequent visits were to Aunt Bern*
stein, and I promise you I was not at all jealous because
my aunt presently professed to have a wonderful liking
for Theo.
This liking grew so that she would have her most days
in the week, or to stay altogether with her, and thought
that Theo’s child and husband were only plagues to be
sure, and hated us in the most amusing way for keeping
her favourite from her. Not that my wife was unworthy
of anybody’s favour ; but her many forced absences, and
the constant difficulty of intercourse with her, raised my
aunt’s liking for a while to a sort of passion. She poured
in notes like love-letters ; and her people were ever about
our kitchen. If my wife did not go to her, she wrote
heart-rending appeals, and scolded me severely when I saw
her ; and, the child being ill once (it hath pleased Fate
to spare our captain to be a prodigious trouble to us, and
a wholesome trial for our tempers), Madame Bernstein
came three days running to Lambeth ; vowed there was
nothing the matter with the baby ; — ^nothing at all ; — and
that we only pretended his illness, in order to vex her.
The reigning Countess of Castlewood was just as easy
$76
THE VIRGINIANS
and affable with her old aunt, as with other folks great
and small- " What air you all about, scraping and bowing
to that old woman, I can’t tell, no ways ! ’ her ladyship
would say. ‘ She a fine lady ! Nonsense ! She ain’t no
more fine than any other lady : and I guess I’m as good
as any of ’em with their high heels and their grand airs !
She a beauty once ! Take away her wig, and her rouge,
and her teeth ; and what becomes of your beauty. I’d
like to know ? Guess you’d put it aU in a bandbox, and
there would be nothing left but a shrivelled old woman ! ’
And indeed the little homilist only spoke too truly. All
beauty must at last come to this complexion ; and decay,
either under ground or on the tree. Here was old age,
I fear, without reverence. Here were grey hairs, that were
hidden, or painted. The world was still here, and she
tottering on it, and clinging to it with her crutch. Por
fourscore years she had moved on it, and eaten of the
tree, forbidden and permitted. She had had beauty,
pleasure, flattery : but what secret rages, disappointments,
defeats, humiliations ! what thorns under the roses ! what
stinging bees in the fruit ! ^ You are not a beauty, my
dear,’ she would say to my wife : ‘ and may thank your
stars that you are not.’ (If she contradicted herself in
her talk, I suppose the rest of us occasionally do the like.)
‘ Don’t tell me that your husband is pleased with your
face, and you want no one else’s admiration ! We all do.
Every woman would rather be beautiful, than be anything
else in the world — ever so rich, or ever so good, or have
all the gifts of the fairies ! Look at that picture, though
I know ’tis but a bad one, and that stupid vapouring
Kneller could not paint my eyes, nor my air, nor my
complexion. What a shape I had then — ^and look at me
now, and this wrinkled old neck ! Why have we such
a short time of our beauty ? . I remember Mademoiselle
de I’Enclos at a much greater age than mine, quite fresh
and well conserved. We can’t hide our ages. They are
wrote in Mr. Colhns’s books for us. I was born in the
last year of King James’s reign. I am not old yet. I am
but seventy-six. But what a wreck, my dear ; and isn’t
it cruel that our time should be so short ? ’
Here my wife has to state the incontrovertible proposi-
tion, that the time of all of us is short here below.
‘ Ha ! ’ cries the baroness, ‘ did not Adam live near
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
877
a thousand years, and was not Eve beautiful all the time ?
I used to perplex Mr. Tusher with that — ^poor creature !
What have we done since, that our lives are so much
lessened, I say ? ’
^ Has your life been so happy that you would prolong it
ever so much more ? ’ asks the baroness’s auditor. ‘ Have
you, who love wit, never read Dean Swift’s famous descrip-
tion of the deathless people in Gulliver? My papa and
my husband say ’tis one of the finest and most awful
sermons ever wrote. It were better not to live at all,
than to live without love ; and I’m sure,’ says my wife,
putting her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘ should anything
happen to my dearest George, I would wish to go to Heaven
that moment.’
‘ Who loves me in Heaven ? I am quite alone, child —
that is why I had rather stay here,’ says the baroness, in
a frightened and rather piteous tone. ‘ You are kind to
me, God bless your sweet face ! Though I scold, and have
a frightful temper, my servants will do anything to make
me comfortable, and get up at any hour of the night, and
never say a cross word in answer. I like my cards still.
Indeed, fife would be a blank without ’em. Almost every-
thing is gone except that, I can’t eat my dinner now,
since I lost those last two teeth. Everything goes away
from us in old age. But I still have my cards — thank
Heaven, I still have my cards ! ’ And here she would
begin to doze ; waking up, however, if my wife stirred
or rose, and imagining that Theo was about to leave her.
‘ Don’t go away, I can’t bear to be alone. I don’t want
you to talk. But I like to see your face, my dear ! It
is much pleasanter than that horrid old Brett’s, that I have
had scowling about my bedroom these ever so long years.’
‘ Well, baroness ! still at your cribbage ? ’ (We may
fancy a noble countess interrupting a game at cards between
Theo and Aunt Bernstein.) ‘ Me and my Lord Esmond
have come to see you ! Go and shake hands with grand-
aunt, Esmond ! and tell her ladyship that your lordship’s
a good boy ! ’
" My lordship’s a good boy,’ says the child. (Madam
Theo used to act these scenes for me in a very hvely way.)
‘ And if he is, I guess he don’t take after his father,’'
shrieks out Lady Castlewood. She chose to fancy that
Aunt Bernstein was deaf, and alw'ays bawled at the old lady.
878
THE .VIRGINIANS
‘ Your ladyship chose my nephew for better or for
worse/ says Aunt Bernstein, who was now always very
much flurried in the presence of the young countess.
‘ But he is a precious deal worse than ever I thought he
was. I am speaking of your pa, Ezzy. If it wasn’t for
your mother, my son, Lord knows what would become of
you ! We are a-going to see his little royal highness.
Sorry to see your ladyship not looking quite so well to-day.
We can’t always remain young : and law, how we do
change as we grow old ! Go up and kiss that lady, Ezzy,
She has got a little boy, too. Why, bless us ! Have you
got the child downstairs ? ’ Indeed, Master Miles was down
below, for special reasons accompanying his mother on her
visits to Aunt Bernstein sometimes ; and our aunt desired
the mother’s company so much, that she was actually fain
to put up with the child. ‘ So you have got the child
here ? Oh, you sly-boots ! ’ says the countess. ‘ Guess
you come after the old lady’s money I Law bless you !
Don’t look so frightened. She can’t hear a single word
I say. Come, Ezzy. Good-bye, aunt ! ’ And my lady
countess rustles out of the room.
Did Aunt Bernstein hear her or not ? Where wa^ the
wit for which the old lady had been long famous ? and
was that fire put out, as well as the brilliancy of her eyes ?
With other people she was stiU ready enough, and unsparing
of her sarcasms. When the Dowager of Castlewood and
Lady Eanny visited her (these exalted ladies treated my
wife with perfect indifference and charming good breeding)
— ^the baroness, in their society, was stately, easy, and even
commanding. She would mischievously caress Mrs. War-
rington before them ; in her absence, vaunt my wife’s
good breeding ; say that her nephew had made a foolish
match perhaps, but that I certainly had taken a charming
vufe. ‘ In a word, I praise you so to them, my dear,’
says she, ‘ that I think they would like to tear your eyes
out.’ But, before the little American, ’tis certain that she
was uneasy and trembled. She was so afraid, that she
actually did not dare to deny her door ; and, the countess’s
back turned, did not even abuse her. However much
they might dislike her, my ladies did not tear out Theo’s
eyes. Once they drove to our cottage at Lambeth, where
my wife happened to be sitting at the open window, holding
her child on her knee, and in full view of her visitors.
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
870
A gigantic footman strutted through our little garden, and
delivered their ladyships’ visiting tickets at our door. Their
hatred hurt us no more than their visit pleased us. When
next we had the loan of our friend the brewer’s carriage,
Mrs. Warrington drove to Kensington, and Gumbo handed
over to the giant our cards in return for those which his
noble mistresses had bestowed on us.
The baroness had a coach, but seldom thought of giving
it to us : and would let Theo and her maid and baby
start from Clarges Street in the rain, with a faint excuse
that she was afraid to ask her coachman to take his horses
out. But, twice on her return home, my wife was frightened
by rude fellows on the other side of Westminster Bridge ;
and I fairly told my aunt that I should forbid Mrs. War-
rington to go to her, unless she could be brought home in
safety ; so grumbling Jehu had to drive his horses through
the darkness. He grumbled at my shillings : he did not
know how few I had. Our poverty wore a pretty decent
face. My relatives never thought of relieving it, nor I of
complaining before them. I don’t know how Sampson got
a windfall of guineas ; but, I remember, he brought me
six once ; and they were more welcome than any money
I ever had in my hfe. He had been looking into Mr. Miles’s
crib, as the child lay asleep ; and, when the parson went
away, I found the money in the baby’s little rosy hand.
Yes, Love is best of all. I have many such benefactions
registered in my heart — ^precious welcome fountains spring-
ing up in desert places, kind friendly lights cheering our
despondency and gloom.
This worthy divine was willing enough to give as much
of his company as she chose to Madame de Bernstein,
whether for cards or theology. Having known her lady-
ship for many years now, Sampson could see, and averred
to us that she was breaking fast ; and as he spoke of her
evidently increasing infirmities, and of the probabihty of
their fatal termination, Mr. S. would discourse to us in
a very feeling manner of the necessity for preparing for
a future world ; of the vanities of this, and of the hope that
in another there might be happiness for all repentant sinners.
‘ I have been a sinner for one,’ says the chaplain, bowing
his head, ‘ God knoweth, and I pray Him to pardon me.
I fear, sir, your aunt, the lady baroness, is not in such
a state of mind as will fit her very well for the change
8S0
THE VIRGINIANS
which is imminent. I am but a poor weak wretch, and
no prisoner in Newgate could confess that more humbly
and heartily. Once or twice of late, I have sought to speak
on this matter with her ladyship, but she has received me
very roughly. Parson,” says she, if you come for cards,
’tis mighty well, but I will thank you to spare me your
sermons.” What can I do, sir ? I have called more than
once of late, and Mr. Case hath told me his lady was unable
to see me.’ In fact Madame Bernstein told my wife, whom
she never refused, as I said, that the poor chaplain’s ton
was unendurable, and as for his Theology, ^ Haven’t I been
a bishop’s wife ? ’ says she, ‘ and do I want this creature
to teach me ? ’
The old lady was as impatient of doctors as of divines ;
pretending that my wife was ailing, and that it was more
convenient for our good Doctor Heberden to visit her in
Clarges Street than to travel all the way to our Lambeth
lodgings, we got Dr. H. to see Theo at our aunt’s house,
and prayed him if possible, to offer his advice to the
baroness : we made Mrs. Brett, her woman, describe her
ailments, and the doctor confirmed our opinion that they
were most serious, and might speedily end. She would
rally briskly enough of some evenings, and entertain a little
company; but of late she scarcely went abroad at all.
A somnolence which we had remarked in her, was attri-
butable in part to opiates which she was in the habit of
taking ; and she used these narcotics to smother habitual
pain. One night, as we two sat with her (Mr. Miles was
weaned by this time, and Ms mother could leave him to
the charge of our faithful Molly), she fell asleep over her
cards. We hushed the servants who came to lay out the
supper-table (she would always have this luxurious, nor
could any injunction of ours or the doctor’s teach her
abstinence), and we sat a ”wMle as we had often done
before, waiting in silence till she should arouse from her doze.
When she awoke she looked fixedly at me for a while,
fumbled with the cards, and dropt them again in her lap,
and said, ‘ Henry, have I been long asleep ? ’ I thought
at first that it was for my brother she mistook me ; but
she went on quickly, and with eyes fixed as upon some
very far distant object, and said, ‘ My dear, ’tis of no use,
I am not good enough for you. I love cards, and play
and Court ; and oh, Harry, you don’t know all ! ’ Here
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
881
her voice changed, and she flung her head up. ‘ His father
married Anne Hyde, and sure the Esmond blood is as good
as any that’s not royal. Mamma, you must please to treat
me with more respect. Vos sermons me fatiguent ; en-
tendez- vous ? — faites place a mon Altesse royale : mesdames,
me connaissez-vous ? je suis la .’ Here she broke out
into frightful hysterical shrieks and laughter, and as we ran
up to her alarmed, ‘ Oui, Henri,’ she says, ‘ il a jure de
m’epouser et les princes tiennent parole — ^n’est-ce pas ?
Oh ! oui, ils tiennent parole ; si non, tu le tueras, cousin ;
tu le ah ! que je suis foUe ! ’ and the pitiful shrieks
and laughter recommenced — ere her frightened people had
come up to her summons, the poor tiling had passed out
of this mood into another ; but always labouring under
the same delusion — ^that I was the Henry of past times,
who had loved her and had been forsaken by her, whose
bones were lying far away by the banks of the Potomac.
My wife and the women put the poor lady to bed as
I ran myself for medical aid. She rambled, still talking
wildly, through the night, with her nurses and the surgeon
sitting by her. Then she fell into a sleep, brought on by
more opiate. When she awoke, her mind did not actually
wander ; but her speech w^as changed, and one arm and
side were paralysed.
’Tis needless to relate the progress and termination of
her malady, or watch that expiring flame of life as it
gasps and flickers. Her senses would remain with her for
a while (and then she was never satisfied unless Theo was
by her bedside) or again her mind would wander, and the
poor decrepit creature, lying upon her bed, would imagine
herself young again, and speak incoherently of the scenes
and incidents of her early days. Then she would address
me as Henry again ; and call upon me to revenge some
insult or slight, of which (whatever my suspicions might
be) the only record lay in her insane memory. ‘They
have always been so,’ she would murmur, ‘they never
loved man or woman but they forsook them. Je me
vengerai, 6 oui, je me vengerai I I know them all : I know
them all : and I will go to my Lord Stair with the list.
Don’t tell me ! His religion can’t be the right one. I will
go back to my mother’s, though she does not love me.
She never did. Why don’t you, mother ? Is it because
I am too wicked ? Ah ! pitie, pitie, 6 mon pere ! I will
882
THE VIRGINIANS
make my confession ’ — ^and here the unhappy paralysed
lady made as if she would move in her bed.
Let us draw the curtain round it. I think with awe
still, of those rapid words, uttered in the shadow of the
canopy, as my paUid wife sits by, her Prayer-book on her
knee ; as the attendants move to and fro noiselessly ; as
the clock ticks without, and strikes the fleeting hours ; as
the sun falls upon the Kneller picture of Beatrix in her
beauty, with the blushing cheeks, the smiling lips, the
waving auburn tresses, and the eyes which seem to look
towards the dim figure moaning in the bed. I could not
for a while understand why our aunt’s attendants were so
anxious that we should quit it. But towards evening,
a servant stole in, and whispered her woman ; and then
Brett, looking rather disturbed, begged us to go down-
stairs, as the — ^as the doctor was come to visit the baroness.
I did not tell my wife at the time who ‘ the doctor ’ was ;
but as the gentleman slid by us, and passed upstairs,
I saw at once that he was a Catholic ecclesiastic. When
Theo next saw our poor lady, she was speechless ; she
never recognized any one about her, and so passed un-
consciously out of life. During her illness her relatives
had called assiduously enough, though she would see none
of them save us. But when she was gone, and we descended
to the lower rooms after aU was over, we found Castlewood
with his white face, and my lady from Kensington, and
Mr. Will, already assembled in the parlour. They looked
greedily at us as we appeared. They were hungry for
the prey.
When our aunt’s will was opened, we found it was dated
five years back, and everything she had was left to her
dear nephew, Henry Esmond Warrington of Castlewood in
Virginia, ^in affectionate love and remembrance of the
name which he bore.’ The property was not great. Her
revenue had been derived from pensions from the Crown
as it appeared (for what services I cannot say), but the
pension of course died with her, and there were only a few
hundred pounds, besides jewels, trinkets, and the furniture
of the house in Clarges Street, of which all London came
to the sale. Mr. Walpole bid for her portrait, but I made
free with Harry’s money so far as to buy the picture in :
and it now hangs over the mantelpiece of the chamber
TROUBLES AND CONSOLATIONS
883
in which I write. What with jewels, laces, trinkets, and
old china which she had gathered — Harry became possessed
of more than four thousand pounds by his aunt’s legacy.
I made so free as to lay my hand upon a hundred, which
came, just as my stock was reduced to twenty pounds ;
and I procured bills for the remainder, which I forwarded
to Captain Henry Esmond in Virginia. Nor should I have
scrupled to take more (for my brother was indebted to
me in a much greater sum), but he wrote me there was
another wonderful opportunity for buying an estate and
negroes in our neighbourhood at home ; and Theo and
I were only too glad to forgo our little claim, so as to
establish our brother’s fortune. As to mine, poor Harry
at this time did not know the state of it. My mother
had never informed him that she had ceased remitting to
me. She helped him with a considerable sum, the result
of her savings, for the purchase of his new estate ; and
Theo and I were most heartily thankful at his prosperity.
And how strange ours was ! By what curious good
fortune, as our purse was emptied, was it filled again !
I had actually come to the end of our stock, when poor
Sampson brought me his six pieces — and with these I was
enabled to carry on, until my half-year’s salary, as young
Mr. Eoker’s governor, was due : then Harry’s hundred,
on which I laid main basse, helped us over three months
(we were behindhand with our rent, or the money would
have lasted six good weeks longer) : and when this was
pretty near expended, what should arrive but a bill of
exchange for a couple of hundred pounds from Jamaica,
with ten thousand blessings from the dear friends there,
and fond scolding from the general that we had not sooner
told him of our necessity — of which he had only heard
through our friend Mr. Foker, who spoke in such terms
of Theo and myself as to make our parents more than ever
proud of their children. Was my quarrel with my mother
irreparable ? Let me go to Jamaica. There was plenty
there for all, and employment which his Excellency as
Governor would immediately procure for me. ‘ Come to
us ! ’ writes Hetty. ‘ Come to us ! ’ writes Aunt Lambert.
‘ Have my children been suffering poverty, and we rolling
in our excellency’s coach, with guards to turn out when-
ever we pass ? Has Charley been home to you for ever
so many holidays, from the Chartreux, and had ever so
884
THE VIRGINIANS
many of my poor George’s half-crowns in his pocket,
I dare say ’ (this was indeed the truth, for where was he
to go for holidays but to his sister ? and was there any
use in telling the cliild how scarce haK-crowns w^ere with
us ?). ‘ And you always treating him with such goodness,
as his letters tell me, which are brimful of love for George
and little Miles ! Oh, how w^e long to see Miles ! ’ wrote
Hetty and her mother ; ‘ and as for his godfather ’ (writes
Het), ‘who has been good to my dearest and her child,
I promise him a kiss whenever I see him ! ’
Our young benefactor was never to hear of our family’s
love and gratitude to him. That glimpse of his bright
face over the railings before our house at Lambeth, as he
rode away on his little horse, was the last we ever were
to have of him. At Christmas a basket comes to us,
containing a great turkey, and three brace of partridges,
with a card, and ‘ sh)t hy M, Tf .’ wrote on one of them.
And on receipt of this present, we wrote to thank the
child, and gave him our sister’s message.
To this letter there came a reply from Lady Warrington,
who said she was bound to inform me, that in visiting
me her child had been guilty of disobedience, and that she
learned his visit to me now for the first time. Knowing
my views regarding duty to my 'parents (which I had exem-
plified in my marriage), she could not wish her son to adopt
them. And fervently hoping that I might be brought to
see the errors of my present course, she took leave of this
most unpleasant subject, subscribing herself, &c. &c. And
we got this pretty missive as sauce for poor Miles’s turkey,
which was our family feast for New Year’s Day. My
Lady Warrington’s letter choked our meal, though Samp-
son and Charley rejoiced over it.
Ah me ! Ere the month was over, our little friend was
gone from amongst us. Going out shooting, and dragging
his gun through a hedge after him, the trigger caught in
a bush, and the poor little man was brought home to his
father’s house, only to live a few days and expire in pain
and torture. Under the yew-trees yonder, I can see the
vault which covers him, and where my bones one day no
doubt will be laid. And over our pew at church, my
children have often wistfully spelt the touching epitaph
in which Miles’s heart-broken father has inscribed his grief
and love for his only son.
885
CHAPTER LXXXIV
DT WHICH HARBY SUBMITS TO THE COMMON LOT
ARD times were now over
with me, and I had to
battle with poverty no
more. My little kinsman’s
death made a vast differ-
ence in my worldly pros-
pects. I became next heir
to a good estate. My uncle
and his wife were not likely
to have more children.
‘ The woman is capable of
committing any crime to
disappoint you,’ Sampson
vowed ; but, in truth, my
Lady Warrington was
guilty of no such treachery.
Cruelly smitten by the
stroke which fell upon
them, Lady Warrington was taught by her religious advisers
to consider it as a chastisement of Heaven, and submit to
the Divine Will. ‘ Whilst your son lived, your heart was
turned away from the better world ’ (her clergyman told
her), ‘and your ladyship thought too much of this. For
your son’s advantage you desired rank and title. You
asked and might have obtained an earthly coronet. Of
what avail is it now, to one who has but a few years to
pass upon earth — of what importance compared to the
heavenly crown, for which you are an assured candidate ? ’
The accident caused no little sensation. In the chapels of
that enthusiastic sect, towards which, after her son’s death,
she now more than ever inclined, many sermons were
preached bearing reference to the event. Far be it from
me to question the course which the bereaved mother
pursued, or to regard with other than respect and sympathy
any unhappy soul seeking that refuge whither sin and
grief and disappointment fly for consolation. Lady War-
rington even tried a reconciliation with myself. A year
after her loss^ being in London, she signified that she
886
THE VIRGINIANS
would see me, and I waited on her ; and she gave me,
in her usual didactic way, a homily upon my position and
her own. She marvelled at the decree of Heaven, which
had permitted, and how dreadfully punished 1 her poor
child’s disobedience to her — a, disobedience by which I was
to profit. (It appeared my poor little man had disobeyed
orders, and gone out with his gun, unknown to his mother.)
She hoped that, should I ever succeed to the property,
though the Warringtons were, thank Heaven, a long-lived
family, except in my own father’s case, whose life had been
curtailed by the excesses of a very ill-regulated youth, —
but should I ever succeed to the family estate and honours,
she hoped, she prayed, that my present course of life might
be altered ; that I should part from my unworthy asso-
ciates ; that I should discontinue all connexion with the
horrid theatre and its licentious frequenters ; that I should
turn to that quarter where only peace was to be had;
and to those sacred duties which she feared — she very
much feared — ^that I had neglected. She filled her exhorta-
tion with Scripture language, which I do not care to imitate.
When I took my leave she gave me a packet of sermons
for Mrs. Warrington, and a little book of hymns by Miss
Bora, who has been eminent in that society of which she
and her mother became avowed professors subsequently,
and who, after the dowager’s death, at Bath, three years
since, married young Mr. JufBles, a celebrated preacher.
The poor lady forgave me then, but she could not bear
the sight of our boy. We lost our second child, and then
my, aunt and her daughter came eagerly enough to the
poor suffering mother, and even invited us hither. But
my uncle was now almost every day in our house. He
would sit for hours looking at our boy. He brought him
endless toys and sweetmeats. He begged that the child
might call him Godpapa. When we felt our own grief
(which at times still, and after the lapse of five-and-twenty
years, strikes me as keenly as on tlxe day when we first
lost our little one) — ^when I felt my own grief, I knew how
to commiserate his. But my wife could pity him before
she knew what it was to lose a child of her own. The
mother’s anxious heart had already divined the pang which
was felt by the sorrow-stricken father ; mine, more selfish,
has only learned pity from experience, and I was reconciled
to my uncle by my little baby’s coffin.
HAERY SUBMITS TO TEE COMMON LOT 889
The poor man sent his coach to follow the humble
funeral, and afterwards took out little Miles, who prattled
to him unceasingly, and forgot any grief he might have
felt in the delights of his new black clothes, and the
pleasures of the airing. How the innocent talk of the child
stabbed the mother’s heart 1 Would we ever wish that it
should heal of that wound ? I know her face so well that,
to this day, I can tell when, sometimes, she is thinking
of the loss of that little one. It is not a grief for a parting
so long ago ; it is a communion with a soul we love in
heaven.
We came back to our bright lodgings in Bloomsbury
soon afterwards, and my young bear, whom I could no
longer lead, and who had taken a prodigious friendship
for Charley, went to the Chartreux School, where his friend
took care that he had no more beating than was good for
him, and where (in consequence of the excellence of his
private tutor, no doubt) he took and kept a good place.
And he liked the school so much, that he says, if ever he
has a son, he shall be sent to that seminary.
Now, I could no longer lead my bear, for this reason,
that I had other business to follow. Being fuUy reconciled
to us, I do believe, for Mr. -Miles’s sake, my uncle (who
was such an obsequious supporter of Government, that
I wonder the minister ever gave him anything, being per-
fectly sure of his vote) used his influence in behalf of his
nephew and heir ; and I had the honour to be gazetted
as one pf his Majesty’s Commissioners for licensing hackney-
coaches, a post I filled, I trust, with credit, untfl a quarrel
with the minister (to be mentioned in its proper place)
deprived me of timt one. I took my degree also at the
Temple, and appeared in Westminster Hall in my gown
and wig. And, this year, my good friend, Mr. Eoker,
having business at Paris, I had the pleasure of accom-
panying him thither, where I was received d hras ouverts
by my dear American preserver, Monsieur de Plorac, who
introduced me to his noble family, and to even more of
the polite society of the capital than I had leisure to
frequent ; for I had too much spirit to desert my kind
patron, Poker, whose acquaintance lay chiefly amongst the
bourgeoisie, especially with Monsieur Santerre, a great
brewer of Paris, a scoundrel who hath since distinguished
himself in blood and not beer. Mr. P. had need of my
890
THE VIBGINIANS
services as interpreter, and I was too glad that he should
command them, and to be able to pay back some of the
kindness which he had rendered to me. Our ladies, mean-
while, were residing at Mr. Foker’s new villa at Wimble-
don, and were pleased to say that they were amused with
the ‘ Parisian letters ’ which I sent to them, through my
distinguished friend Mr, Hume, then of the embassy, and
which subsequently have been published in a neat volume.
Whilst I was tranquilly discharging my small official
duties in London, those troubles were commencing which
were to end in the great separation between our colonies
and the mother-country. When Mr. Grenville proposed
his stamp duties, I said to my wife that the bill would
create a mighty discontent at home, for we were ever
anxious to get as much as we could from England, and
pay back as little ; but assuredly I never anticipated the
prodigious anger which the scheme created. It was with
us as with families or individuals. A pretext is given for
a quarrel : the real cause lies in long bickerings and previous
animosities. Many foolish exactions and petty tyrannies,
the habitual insolence of Englishmen towards all foreigners,
all colonists, all folk who dare to think their rivers as good
as our Abana and Pharpar; the natural spirit of men
outraged by our imperious domineering spirit, set Britain
and her colonies to quarrel ; and the astonishing blunders
of the system adopted in England brought the quarrel to
an issue, which I, for one, am not going to deplore. Had
I been in Virginia instead of London, ’tis very possible
I should have taken the provincial side, if out of mere
opposition to that resolute mistress of Castlewood, who
might have driven me into revolt, as England did the
colonies. Was the Stamp Act the cause of the revolu-
tion ? — tax no greater than that cheerfully paid in
England. Ten years earlier, when the French were within
our territory, and we were imploring succour from home,
would the colonies have rebelled at the payment of this
tax ? Do not most people consider the tax-gatherer the
natural enemy ? Against the British in America there
were arrayed thousands and thousands of the high-spirited
and brave, but there were thousands more who found their
profit in the quarrel, or had their private reasons for
engaging in it. I protest I don’t know now whether mine
were selfish or patriotic, or which side was in the right,
HARRY SUBMITS TO THE COMMON LOT
891
or whether both were not ? I am sure we in England had
nothing to do but to fight the battle out ; and, having
lost the game, I do vow and believe that, after the first
natural soreness, the loser felt no rancour.
What made brother Hal write home from Virginia, which
he seemed exceedingly loath to quit, such flaming patriotic
letters ? My kind best brother was always led by some-
body ; by me when we were together (he had such an idea
of my wit and wisdom, that if I said the day was fine,
he would ponder over the observation as though it was
one of the sayings of the Seven Sages), by some other
wiseacre when I was away. Who inspired these flaming
letters, this boisterous patriotism, which he sent to us in
London ? ‘ He is rebelling against Madam Esmond,’ said
I. ‘He is led by some colonial person — ^by that lady,
perhaps,’ hinted my wife. Who ‘ that lady ’ was Hal never
had told us ; and, indeed, besought me never to allude to
the delicate subject in my letters to him ; ‘ for madam
wishes to see ’em all, and I wish to say nothing dboud
you know what until the proper moment,’ he wrote. No
affection could be greater than that which his letters
showed. When he heard (from the informant whom I have
mentioned) that in the midst of my own extreme straits
I had retained no more than a hundred pounds out of
his aunt’s legacy, he was for mortgaging the estate which
he had just bought ; and had more than one quarrel with
his mother in my behalf, and spoke his mind with a great
deal more frankness than I should ever have ventured to
show. Until her angry recriminations (when she charged
him with ingratitude, after having toiled and saved so
much and so long for him), the poor feUow did not know
that our mother had cut off my supplies to advance his
interests ; and by the time this news came to him his
bargains were made, and I was fortunately quite out of
want.
Every scrap of paper which we ever wrote, our thrifty
parent at Castlewood taped and docketed and put away.
We boys were more careless about our letters to one
another : I especially, who perhaps chose rather to look
down upon my younger brother’s literary performances ;
but my wife is not so supercilious, and hath kept no small
number of Harry’s letters, as well as those of the angelic
being whom we were presently to call sister.
892
THE VIRGINIANS
‘To think whom he has chosen, and whom he might
have had I Oh, ’tis cruel ! ’ cries my wife, when we got
that notable letter in which Harry first made us acquainted
with the name of his charmer.
‘She was a very pretty little maid when I left home,
she may be a perfect beauty now,’ I remarked, as I read
over the longest letter Harry ever wrote on private affairs.
‘ But is she to compare to my Hetty ? ’ says Mrs. War-
rington.
‘ We agreed that Hetty and Harry were not to be happy
together, my love,’ say L
Theo gives her husband a kiss. ‘ My dear, I wish they
had tried,’ she says v^th a sigh. ‘ I was afraid lest — ^lest
Hetty should have led him, you see : and I think she hath
the better head. But, from reading this, it appears that
the new lady has taken command of poor Harry,’ and she
hands me the letter.
My dearest George hath been prepared by previous letters to
understand how a certain lady has made a conquest of my heart,
which I have given away in exchange for something infinitely more
valuable, rmridy. Tier ovm. She is at my side as I write this letter,
and if there is no bad spelling such as you often used to laugh at,
’tis because I have my pretty dictionary at hand, which makes
no fault in the longest word, nor in anything else I know of : being
of opinion that she is 'perfection.
As Madam Esmond saw all your letters, I writ you not to give any
hint of a certain delicate matter — but now His no secret, and is
known to aU the country. Mr. George is not the only one of our
family who has made a secret marriage, and been scolded by his
mother. As a dutiful younger brother I have followed his example ;
and now I may tell you how this mighty event came about.
I had not been at home long before I saw my fate was accomplisht.
I will not teU you how beautiful Miss Eanny Mountain had grown
since I had been away in Europe. She saith, ‘ You never will think
so,^ and I am glad, as she is the only thing in life I would grudge
to my dearest brother.
That neither Madam Esmond nor my other mother (as Mountain
is now) should have seen our mutual attachment, is a wonder — only
to be accounted for by supposing that love makes other folks blind.
Mine for my Fanny was increased by seeing what the treatment
was she had from Madam Esmond, who indeed was very rough
and haughty with her, which my love bore with a sweetness per-
fectly angelic (this I will say, though she will order me not to write
any such nonsense). She was scarce better treated than a servant
of the house — ^indeed our negroes can talk much more free before
-Mstdam Esmond than ever my Fanny could.
HARRY SUBMITS TO THE COMMON LOT
893
And yet my Fanny says she doth not regret madam’s unkindness,
as mthout it I possibly never should have been what I am to her.
Oh, dear brother ! when I remember how great your goodn^s hath
been, how, in my own want, you paid my debts, and rescued me out
of prison ; how you have been living in poverty which never need
have occurred but for my fault ; how you might have paid yourself
back my just debt to you and would not, preferring my advantage
to your own comfort, indeed I am lost at the thought of such good-
ness ; and ought I not to be thankful to Heaven that hath given
me such a wife and such a brother !
When I writ to you requesting you to send me my aunt’s legacy
money, for which indeed I had the most profitable and urgent
occasion, I had no idea that you were yourself suffering poverty.
That you, the head of our family, should condescend to be governor
to a brewer’s son! — ^that you should have to write for booksellers
(except in so far as your own genius might prompt you) never once
entered my mind, until Mr. Foker’s letter came to us, and this
would never have been shown — for madam kept it secret — had it
not been for the difference which sprang up between us.
Poor Tom Biggie’s estate and negroes being for sale, owing to
Tom’s losses and extravagance at play, and his father’s debts before
him — Madam Esmond saw here was a great opportunity of making
a provision for me, and that with six thousand pounds for the farm
and stock, I should be put in possession of as pretty a property as
falls to most younger sons in this country. It lies handy enough
to Richmond, between Kent and Hanover Court House — the
mansion nothing for elegance compared to ours at Castlewood, but
the land excellent and the people extraordinary healthy.
Here was a second opportunity. Madam Esmond said, such as
never might again befall. By the sale of my commissions and her
own savings I might pay more than half of the price of the property,
and get the rest of the money on mortgage ; though here, where
money is scarce to procure, it would have been difficult and dear.
At this juncture, with our new relative, Mr. Van den Bosch, bidding
against us (his agent is wild that we should have bought the property
over him), my aunt’s legacy most opportunely fell in. And now
I am. owner of a good house and negroes in my native country,
shall be called, no doubt, to our House of Burgesses, and hope
to see my dearest brother and family under my own roof-tree.
To sit at my own fireside, to ride my own horses to my own hounds,
is better than going a-soldiering, now war is over, and there are no
French to fight. Indeed, Madam Esmond made a condition that
I should leave the army, and live at home, when she brought me
her 1,750?. of savings. She had lost one son, she said, who chose to
write play-books, and live in England — let the other stay with her
at home.
But, after the purchase of the estate was made, and my papers
for selling out were sent home, my mother would have had me
marry a person of her choosing, but by no means of mine. You
894
THE VIBGINIANS
remember Miss Betsy Pitts at Williamsburg ? She is in no wise
improved by having had her face dreadfully scarred with small-
pock, and though Madam Esmond saith the young lady hath every
virtue, I own her virtues did not suit me. Her eyes do not look
straight ; she hath one leg shorter than another ; and, oh, brother !
di^t thou never remark Faimy’s ankles when we were boys ?
Neater I never saw at the Opera.
Now, when ’twas agreed that I should leave the army, a certain
dear girl (canst thou guess her name ?) one day, when we were
private, burst into tears of such happiness, that I could not but
feel immensely touched by her sympathy.
‘ Ah ! ’ says she, ‘ do you think, sir, that the idea of the son of
my revered benefactress going to battle doth not inspire me with
terror ? Ah, Mr. Henry ! do you imagine I have no heart ? When
Mi. George was with Braddock, do you fancy we did not pray for
him ? And when you were with Mr. Wolfe — oh ! ’
Here the dear creature hid her eyes in her handkerchief, and had
hard work to prevent her mamma, who came in, from seeing that she
was crying. But my dear Mounts declares that, though she might
have fancied, might have prayed in secret for such a thing (she
owns to that now), she never imagined it for one moment. Nor,
indeed, did my good mother, who supposed that Sam Lintot, the
apothecary’s lad at Richmond, was Fanny’s flame — an absurd
fellow that I near kicked into James River.
But when the commission was sold, and the estate bought, what
does Fanny do but fall into a deep melancholy ? I found her crying,
one day, in her mother’s room, where the two ladies had been at
work trimming hats for my negroes.
‘ What ! crying, miss ? ’ says I. ‘ Has my mother been scolding
you?’
‘ No,’ says the dear creature. ‘ Madam Esmond has been kind
to-day.’
And her tears drop down on a cockade which she is sewing on to
a hat for Sady, who is to be head-groom.
‘ Then why, miss, are those dear eyes so red ? ’ say I.
‘^Because I have the toothache,’ she says, ‘ or because — because
I am a fool.’ Here she fairly bursts out. ‘ Oh, Mr. Harry ! Oh,
Mr. Warrington ! You are going to leave us, and ’tis as well. You
will take your place in your country, as becomes you. You will
leave us poor women in our solitude and dependence. You will
come to visit us from time to time. And when you are happy,
and honoured, and among your gay companions, you will remember
your . . . .’
Here she could say no more, and hid her face with one hand,
as I, I confess, seized the other.
‘ Dearest, sweetest Miss Mountain ! ’ says I. ‘ Oh, could I think
that the parting from me has brought tears to those lovely eyes !
Indeed, I fear, I should be almost happy I Let them look upon
your . . .
HARRY SUBMITS TO THE COMMON LOT 895
‘ Oh, sir I ’ cries my charmer ; ‘ oh, Mr. Warrington ! consider
who I am, sir, and who you are ! Remember the difference between
us ! Release my hand, sir ! What would Madam Esmond say
if — ^if . . .
If what, I don’t know, for here our mother was in the room.
‘ What would Madam Esmond say ? ’ she cries out. ‘ She would
say that you are an ungrateful, artful, false, little . . .
‘ Madam ! ’ says I.
‘ Yes, an ungrateful, artful, false, little wretch ! ’ cries out my
mother. ‘ For shame, miss ! What would Mr. Lintot say if he saw
you making eyes at the captain ? And for you, Harry, I will have
you bring none of your garrison-manners hither. This is a Christian
family, sir, and you will please to know that my house is not intended
for captains and their misses ! ’
‘ Misses ! mother,’ says I. ‘ Gracious powers, do you ever venture
for to call Miss Mountain by such a name ? Miss Mountain, the
purest of her sex 1 ’
‘ The purest of her sex ! Can I trust my own ears ? ’ asks madam,
turning very pale.
‘ I mean that if a man would question her honour, I would fling
him out of window,’ says L
‘ You mean that you — ^your mother’s son — are actually pairing
honourable attentions to this young person ? ’
‘ He would never dare to offer any other I ’ cries my Fanny ; ^ nor
any woman but you, madam, to think so ! ’
‘ Oh ! I didn’t know, miss ! ’ says mother, dropping her a fine
curtsy, * I didn’t know the honour you were doing our family !
You propose to marry with us, do you ? Do I understand Captain
Warrington aright, that he intends to offer me Miss Mountain
as a daughter-in-law ? ’
‘ ’Tis to be seen, madam, that I have no protector, or you would
not insult me so ! ’ cries my poor victim.
‘ I should think the apothecary protection sufficient ! ’ sayn our
mother.
‘ I don’t, mother ! ’ I bawl out, for I was very angry ; * and if
Lintot offers her any liberty. I’ll brain him with his own pestle ! ’
‘ Oh ! if Lintot has withdrawn, sir, I suppose I must be silent.
But I did not know of the circumstance. He came hither, as I sup-
posed, to pay court to miss ; and we all thought the match equal,
and I encouraged it.’
‘ He came because I had the toothache ! ’ cries my darling (and
indeed she had a dreadful had tooth. And he took it out for her,
and there is no end to the suspicions and calumnies of women).
‘ What more natural than that he should marry my housekeeper’s
daughter — ’twas a very suitable match ! ’ continues madam, taking
snuff. ‘ But I confess,’ she adds, going on, ‘ I was not aware that
you intended to jilt the apothecary for my son ! '
‘ Peace, for Heaven’s sake, peace, Mr. Warrington ! ’ cries my
angel.
896
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ Pray, sir, before yon fully make up your mind, bad you not
better look round tbe rest of my family ? ’ says madam. ‘ Dinah
is a fine tall girl, and not very black ; Cleopatra is promised to
Ajax tbe blacksmith, to be sure; but then we could break the
marriage, you know. If with an apothecary, why not with a
blacksmith ? Martha’s husband has run away, and ’
Here, dear, brother, I own I broke out a-swearing. I can’t help
it ; but at times, when a man is angry, it do relieve him immensely.
I’m blest but I should have gone wild, if it hadn’t been for them
oaths.
‘ Curses, blasphemy, ingratitude, disobedience ! ’ says mother,
leaning now on her tortoiseshell stick, and then waving it — some-
thing like a queen in a play. ‘ These are my rewards ! ’ says she.
‘Oh, Heaven, what have I done, that I should merit this awful
punishment ? and does it please you to visit the sins of my fathers
upon me ? Where do my children inherit their pride ? When
I was young, had I any ? When my papa bade me marry, did I
refuse ? Did I ever think of disobeying ? No, sir. My fault hath
been, and I own it, that my love was centred upon you, perhaps to the
neglect of your elder brother.’ (Indeed, brother, there was some
truth in what madam said.) ‘I turned from Esau, and I clung
to Jacob. And now I have my reward, I have my reward I I fixed
my vain thoughts on this world, and its distinctions. To see my
son advanced in worldly rank was my ambition. I toiled, and
spared, that I might bring him worldly wealth. I took unjustly
from my eldest son’s portion, that my younger might profit. And
oh, that I should live to see him seducing the daughter of my own
housekeeper under my own roof, and replying to my just anger
with oaths and blasphemies ! ’
‘ I try to seduce no one, madam,’ I cried out. ‘ If I utter oaths
and blasphemies, I beg your pardon ; but you are enough to pro-
voke a saint to speak ’em. , I won’t have this young lady’s character
assailed — ^no, not by my own mother nor any mortal alive. No,
dear Miss Mountain 1 If Madam Esmond chooses to say that
my designs on you are dishonourable, — ^let this undeceive her ! ’
And, as I spoke, I went down on my knees, seizing my adorable
Fanny’s hand. ‘ And if you will accept this heart and hand, miss,’
says I, ‘ they are yours for ever.’
‘ Tow, at least, I knew, sir,’ says Fanny, with a noble curtsy,
‘ never said a word that was disrespectful to me, or entertained any
doubt of my honour. And I trust it is only Madam Esmond, in
the world, who can have such an opinion of me. After what your
ladyship hath said of me, of course I can stay no longer in your house.’
‘ Of course, madam, I never intended you should ; and the sooner
you leave it the better,’ cries our mother.
‘ If you are driven from my mother’s house, mine, miss, is at your
service,’ says I, making her a low bow. ‘ It is nearly ready now.
If you wiU take it and stay in it for ever, it is yours ! And as
Madam Esmond insulted your honour, at least let me do all in my
HARRY SUBMITS TO THE COmiON LOT
899
power to make a reparation I ’ I don’t know what more I exactly said,
for you may fancy I was not a little flustered and excited by the
scene. But here Mountain came in, and my dearest Eanny, flinging
herself into her mother’s arms, wept upon her shoulder ; whilst
Madam Esmond, sitting down in her chair, looked at us as pale
as a stone. Whilst I was telling my story to Mountain (who, poor
thing, ^ had not the least idea, not she, that Miss Fanny and I had
the slightest inclination for one another), I could hear our mother
once or twice still saying, ‘ I am punished for my crime ! ’
Now, what our mother meant by her crime I did not know at
first, or indeed take much heed of what she said ; for you know her
way, and how, when she is angry, she always talks sermons. But
Mountain told me afterwards, when we had some talk together,
as we did at the Tavern, whither the ladies presently removed with
their bag and baggage — ^for not only would they not stay at madam’s
house after the language she used, but my mother determined to
go away likewise. She calle4 her servants together, and announced
her intention of going home instantly to Castlewood ; and I own
to you ’twas with a horrible pain I saw the family coach roll by,
with six horses, and ever so many of the servants on mules and on
horseback, as I and Fanny looked through the blinds of the Tavern.
After the words madam used to my spotless Fanny, ’twas impos-
sible that the poor child or her mother should remain in our house ;
and indeed M. said that she would go back to her relations in England :
and, a ship bound homewards lying in James River, she went and
bargained with the captain about a passage, so bent was she upon
qui&ing the country, and so little did she think of making a match
between me and my angel. But the cabin was mercifully engaged
by a North Carolina gentleman and his family, and before the next
ship sailed (which bears this letter to my dearest George) they
have agreed to stop with me. Almost aU the ladies in this neigh-
bourhood have waited on them. When the marriage takes place,
I hope Madam Esmond will be reconciled. My Fanny’s father
was a British officer ; and, sure, ours was no more. Some day,
please Heaven, we shall visit Europe : and the places where my wild
oats were sown, and where I committed so many extravagances
from which my dear brother rescued me.
The ladies send you their affection and duty, and to my sister.
We hear his Excellency General Lambert is much beloved in Jamaica :
and I shall write to our dear friends there armouncing my happiness.
My dearest brother will participate in it, and I am ever his grateful
and affectionate H. E. W.
— XiU Mountain told me, I had no more notion than the ded
that Madam E. had actially stopt your allowances ; besides making
you pay for ever so much — ^near upon 1,OOOZ. Mountain says — for
goods, &c., provided for the Virginian proparty. Then there was
all the charges of me out of prison^ which 1, 0. U. with all my hart.
Draw upon me, please, dearest brother — to any amount — addressing
900
THE VIRGINIANS
me to care of Messrs. Horn and Sandon, WiUiamsburg, ^ivit ; wbo
remitt by present occasion a bill for 2251., payable by their London
agents on demand. Please dorCi a/:knx>lleSge this in answering : as
there’s no good in hotharing women with accounts : and with the
extra 51. by a capp or what she likes for my dear sister, and a toy
for my nephew from Uncle Hal.
The conclusion to which we came on the perusal of
this document was, that the ladies had superintended
the style and spelling of my poor Hal’s letter, but that
the postscript was added without their knowledge. And
I am afraid we argued that the Virginian Squire was under
female domination — as Hercules, Samson, and fortes multi
had been before him.
CHAPTER LXXXV
INVENI PORTUM
I HEK my mother heard of my
acceptance of a place at home,
I think she was scarcely well
pleased. She may have with-
drawn her supplies in order
to starve me into a surrender,
and force me to return with
my family to Virginia, and
to dependence under her. We
never, up to her dying day,
had any explanation on the
pecuniary dispute between us.
She cut off my allowances :
I uttered not a word ; but
managed to live without her
aid. I never heard that she repented of her injustice, or
acknowledged it, except from Harry’s private communica-
tion to me. In after-days, when we met, by a great gentle-
ness in her behaviour, and an uncommon respect and
affection shown to my wife, Madam Esmond may have
intended I should understand her tacit admission that
she had been wrong; but she made no apology, nor did
I ask one. Harry being provided for (whose welfare I
INVENI PORTOM
901
could not grudge), all my mother’s savings and economical
schemes went to my advantage, who was her heir. Time
was when a few guineas would have been more useful to
me than hundreds which might come to me when I had
no need ; but when Madam Esmond and I met, the period
of necessity was long passed away ; I had no need to
scheme ignoble savings, or to grudge the doctor his fee :
I had plenty, and she could but bring me more. No doubt
she suffered in her own mind to think that my children
had been hungry, and she had offered them no food ;
and that strangers had reheved the necessity from which
her proud heart had caused her to turn aside. Proud ?
Was she prouder than I ? A soft word of explanation
between us might have brought about a reconciliation
years before it came : but I would never speak, nor did
she. When I commit a wrong, and know it subsequently,
I love to ask pardon; but ’tis as a satisfaction to my
own pride, and to myself I am apologizing for having
been wanting to myself. And hence, I think (out of
regard to that personage of ego), I scarce ever could
degrade myself to do a meanness. How do men feel
whose whole lives (and many men’s lives are) are lies,
schemes, and subterfuges ? What sort of company do
they keep, when they are alone ? Daily in life I watch
men whose every smile is an artifice, and every wink is an
hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow wear a mask in his own
privacy, and to his own conscience ? If I choose to pass
over an injury, I fear ’tis not from a Christian and forgiving
spirit : ’tis because I can afford to remit the debt, and
cQsdain to ask a settlement of it. One or two sweet souls
I have known in my life (and perhaps tried) to whom
forgiveness is no trouble, — a plant that grows naturally,
as it were, in the soil. I know how to remit, I say, not
forgive. I wonder are we proud men proud of being
proud ?
So I showed not the least sign of submission towards
my parent in Virginia yonder, and we continued for years
to live in estrangement, with occasionally a brief word
or two (such as the announcement of the birth of a child,
or what not), passing between my wife and her. After
our first troubles in America about the Stamp Act, troubles
fell on me in London likewise. Though I have been on
the Tory side in our quarrel (as indeed upon the losing
902
THE VIRGINIANS
side in most controversies), having no doubt that the
imperial government had a full right to levy taxes in
the colonies, yet at the time of the dispute I must publish
a pert letter to a member of the House of Burgesses in
Virginia, in which the question of the habitual insolence
of the mother country to the colonies was so freely handled,
and sentiments were uttered so disagreeable to persons
in power, that I was deprived of my place as hackney-
coach licenser, to the terror and horror of my uncle, who
never could be brought to love people in disgrace. He
had grown to have an extreme affection for my wife as well
as my little boy ; but towards myself, personally, enter-
tained a kind of pitying contempt which always infinitely
amused me. He had a natural scorn and dislike for
poverty, and a corresponding love for success and good
fortune. Any opinion departing at all from the regular
track shocked and frightened him, and all truth-telling
made him turn pale. He must have had originally some
warmth of heart and genuine love of kindred : for, spite
of the dreadful shocks I gave him, he continued to see Theo
and the child (and me too, giving nie a mournful recognition
when we met) ; and though broken-hearted by my free-
spokenness, he did not refuse to speak to me as he had
done at the time of our first differences, but looked upon
me as a melancholy lost creature, who was past all worldly
help or hope. Never mind, I must oast about for some
new scheme of life ; and the repayment of Harry’s debt
to me at this juncture enabled me to live at least for some
months even, or years to come. 0 strange fatuity of
youth I I often say. How was it that we dared to be
so poor and so little cast down ?
At this time his Majesty’s royal uncle of Cumberland
fell down and perished in a fit ; and, strange to say, his
.death occasioned a remarkable change in my fortune.
My poor Sir Miles AVarrington never missed any Court
ceremony to which he could introduce himself. He was
at all the drawing-rooms, christenings, balls, funerals of the
Court. If ever a prince or princess was ailing, his coach
was at their door : Leicester Kelds, Carlton House, Gun-
nersbury, were all the same to him, and nothing must
satisfy him now but going to the stout duke’s funeral.
He caught a great cold and an inflammation of the throat
from standing bare-headed at this funeral in the rain : and
INVENI PORTUM
^03
one morning, before almost I had heard of his illness,
a lawyer waits upon me at my lodgings in Bloomsbury,
and salutes me by the name of Sir George Warrington.
Poverty and fear of the future were over now. We laid
the poor gentleman by the side of his little son, in the family
churchyard where so many of his race repose. Little Miles
and I were the chief mourners. An obsequious tenantry
bowed and curtsied before us, and did their utmost to con-
ciliate my honour and my worship. The dowager and her
daughter withdrew to Bath presently; and I and my family
took possession of the house, of which I have been master
for thirty years. Be not too eager, O my son 1 Have
but a little patience, and I too shall sleep under yonder
yew-trees, and the people will be tossing up their caps
for Sir Miles.
The records of a prosperous country life are easily and
briefly told. The steward’s books show what rents were
paid and forgiven, what crops were raised, and in what
rotation. What visitors came to us, and how long they
stayed : what pensioners my wife had, and how they
were doctored and relieved, and how they died : what year
I was sheriff, and how often the hounds met near us :
all these are narrated in our house-journals, which any of
my heirs may read who choose to take the trouble. We
could not afford the fine mansion in Hill Street, which
my predecessor had occupied ; but we took a smaller
house, in which, however, we spent more money. We
made not half the show (with liveries, equipages, and
plate) for which my uncle had been famous ; but our beer
was stronger, and my wife’s charities were perhaps more
costly than those of the Dowager Lady Warrington. No
doubt she thought there was no harm in spoiling the
Philistines ; for she made us pay unconscionably for the
goods she left behind her in our country house, and I sub-
mitted to most of her extortions with unutterable good
humour. What a value she imagined the potted plants in
her greenhouses bore ! What a price she set upon that
horrible old spinet she left in her drawing-room I And
the framed pieces of worsted-work, performed by the
accomplished Dora and the lovely Plora, had they been
masterpieces of Titian or Vandyck, to be sure my lady
dowager could hardly have valued them at a higher price.
But though we paid so generously, though we were, I may
904
THE VIRGINIANS
say without boast, far kinder to our poor than ever she had
been, for a while we had the very worst reputation in the
county, where all sorts of stories had been told to my dis-
credit. I thought I might perhaps succeed to my uncle’s
seat in Parliament, as well as to his landed property ; but
I found, I knew not how, that I was voted to be a person
of very dangerous opinions. I would not bribe. I would
not coerce my own tenants to vote for me in the election
of ’68. A gentleman came down from Whitehall with
a pocket-book full of bank-notes ; and I found that I had
no chance against my competitor.
Bon Dieul Now that we were at ease in respect of
worldly means, — ^now that obedient tenants bowed and
curtsi^ as we went to church ; that we drove to visit
our friends, or to the neighbouring towns, in the great
family coach with the four fat horses ; did we not often
regret poverty, and the dear little cottage at Lambeth,
where Want was ever prowling at the door ? Did I not
long to be bear-leading again, and vow that translating
for booksellers was not such very hard drudgery ? When
we went to London, we made sentimental pilgrimages to
all our old haunts. I dare say my wife embraced all her
landladies. You may be sure we asked all the friends
of those old times to share the comforts of our new home
with us. The Reverend Mr. Hagan and his lady visited
us more than once. His appearance in the pulpit at B
(where he preached very finely, as we thought) caused
an awful scandal there. Sampson came too, another
unlucky Levite, and was welcome as long as he would
stay among us. Mr. Johnson talked of coming, but he
put us off once or twice. I suppose our house was dull.
I know that I myself would be silent for days, and fear
that my moodiness must often have tried the sweetest
tempered woman in the world who lived with me. I did
not care for field sports. The killing one partridge was so
like killing another, that I wondered how men could pass
days after days in the pursuit of that kind of slaughter.
Their fox-hunting stories would begin at four o’clock, when
the tablecloth was removed, and last till supper-time.
I sat silent, and listened : day after day I fell asleep :
no wonder I was not popular with my company.
What admission is this I am making ? Here was the
storm over, the rocks avoided, the ship in port and the
INVENI POBTUM
905
sailor not over-contented ? Was Susan I had been sighing
for during the voyage, not the beauty I expected to find
her ? In the first place, Susan and all the family can
look in her William’s log-book, and so, madam, I am not
going to put my secrets down there. No, Susan, I never
had secrets from thee. I never cared for another woman.
I have seen more beautiful, but none that suited me as
well as your ladyship. I have met Mrs. Carter and Miss
Mulso, and Mrs. Thrale and Madam Kaufmann, and the
angelical Gunnings, and her Grace of Devonshire, and a
host of beauties who were not angelic, by any means ;
and I was not dazzled by them. Nay, young folks, I may
have led your mother a weary life, and been a very Blue-
beard over her, but then I had no other heads in the closet.
Only, the first pleasure of taking possession of our kingdom
over, I own I began to be quickly tired of the crown. When
the captain wears it, his Majesty will be a very different
prince. He can ride a-hunting five days in the week,
and find the sport amusing. I believe he would hear the
same sermon at church fifty times, and not yawn more
than I do at the first delivery. But sweet Joan, beloved
Baucis ! being thy faithful husband and true lover always,
thy Darby is rather ashamed of having been testy so often ;
and, being arrived at the consummation of happiness,
Philemon asks pardon for falling asleep so frequently after
dinner. There came a period of my life, when having
reached the summit of felicity I was quite tired of the
prospect I had there : I yawned in Eden, and said, ^ Is
this all ? What, no lions to bite ? no rain to fall ? no
thorns to prick you in the rose-bush when you sit down ? —
only Eve, for ever sweet and tender, and figs for breakfast,
dinner, supper, from week’s end to week’s end 1 ’ Shall
I make my confessions ? Hearken I Well, then, if I must
make a clean breast of it.
Here three pages are torn out of Sir George Warrington’s
MS. book, for which the Editor is sincerely sorry.
I know the theory and practice of the Roman Church ;
but, being bred of another persuasion (and sceptical and
heterodox regarding that), I can’t help doubting the other,
too, and wondering whether Catholics, in their confessions,
confess all ? Do we Protestants ever do so ; and has
ag 3
906
THE VIEGINIANS
education rendered those other fellow men so different from
us ? At least, amongst us, we are not accustomed to suppose
Catholic priests or laymen more frank and open than
ourselves. Which brings me back to my question, — does
any man confess all ? Does yonder dear creature know
all my life, who has been the partner of it for thirty years ;
who, whenever I have told her a sorrow, has been ready
with the best of her gentle power to soothe it ; who has
watched when I did not speak, and when I was silent has
been silent herself, or with the charming hypocrisy of woman
has worn smiles, and an easy appearance so as to make
me imagine she felt no care, or would not even ask to disturb
her lord’s secret when he seemed to indicate a desire to keep
it private ? O the dear hypocrite ! Have I not watched
her hiding the boys’ peccadilloes from papa’s anger ?
Have I not known her cheat out of her housekeeping
to pay off their little extravagances ; and talk to me with
an artless face, as if she did not l^ow that our revered
captain had had dealings with the gentlemen of Duke’s
Place, and our learned collegian, at the end of his terms,
had very pressing reasons for sporting his oak (as the phrase
is) against some of the university tradesmen ? Why,
from the very earliest days, thou wise woman, thou wert
for ever concealing something from me, — ^this one stealing
jam from the cupboard ; that one getting into disgrace
at school ; that naughty rebel (put on the caps, young
folks, according to the fit) fiinging an inkstand at mamma
in a rage, whilst I was told the gown and the carpet were
spoiled by accident. We all hide from one another.
We have all secrets. We are all alone. We sin by
ourselves, and, let us trust, repent too. Yonder dear
woman would give her foot to spare mine a twinge of the
gout ; but, when I have the fit, the pain is in my slipper.
At the end of the novel or the play, the hero and heroine
marry or die, and so there is an end of them as far as the
poet is concerned, who huzzas for his young couple till
the post-chaise turns the corner ; or fetches the hearse
and plumes, and shovels them underground. But when
Mr. Random and Mr. Thomas Jones are married, is all
over ? Are there no quarrels at home ? Are there no Lady
Bellastons abroad ? are there no constables to be outrun ?
no temptations to conquer us, or be conquered by us ?
The Sirens sang after Ulysses long after his marriage.
INVENI PORTUM
907
and the suitors whispered in Penelope’s ear, and he and
she had many a weary day of doubt and care, and so have
we all. As regards money I was put out of trouble by
the inheritance I made : but does not Atra Cura sit behind
baronets as well as equites ? My friends in London used
to congratulate me on my happiness. Who would not
like to be master of a good house and a good estate ?
But can Gumbo shut the hall-door upon blue devils, or
lay them always in a red sea of claret ? Does a man sleep
the better who has four-and-twenty hours to doze in ?
Do his intellects brighten after a sermon from the dull
old vicar ; a ten minutes’ cackle and flattery from the
village apothecary ; or the conversation of Sir John and
Sir Thomas with their ladies, who come ten moonlight
muddy miles to eat a haunch, and play a rubber ? ’Tis
all very well to have tradesmen bowing to your carriage
door, room made for you at quarter-sessions, and my
lady wife taken down the second or the third to dinner :
but these pleasures fade, nay have their inconveniences.
In our pa^t of the country, for seven years after we came to
Warrington Manor, our two what they called best neigh-
bours were my Lord Tutbury and Sir John Mudbrook.
We are of an older date than the Mudbrooks, consequently
when we dined together my Lady Tutbury always fell
to my lot, who was deaf and fell asleep after dinner ; or if
I had Lady Mudbrook, she chattered with a folly so inces-
sant and intense, that even my wife could hardly keep
her complacency (consummate hypocrite as her ladyship
is), knowing the rage with which I was fuming at the
other’s clatter. I come to London. I show my tongue to
Dr. Heberden. I pour out my catalogue of complaints.
‘ Psha, my dear Sir George ! ’ says the unfeeling physician.
‘ Headaches, languor, bad sleep, bad temper — ’ (‘Not bad
temper. Sir George has the sweetest temper in the world,
only he is sometimes a little melancholy 1’ says my wife.)
‘ Bad sleep, bad temper,’ continues the implacable
doctor. ‘ My dear lady, his inheritance has been his ruin,
and a little poverty and a great deal of occupation would
do him all the good in life.’
No, my brother Harry ought to have been the squire,
with remainder to my son Miles, of course. Harry’s letters
were full of gaiety and good spirits. His estate prospered ;
his negroes multiplied ; his crops were large ; he was
908
THE VIRGINIANS
a member of our House of Burgesses ; he adored his
wife ; could he but have a child his happiness would be
complete. Had Hal been master of Warrington Manor-
house, in my place, he would have been beloved through
the whole country ; he would have been steward at all
the races, the gayest of all the joUy huntsmen, the him-
venu at all the mansions round about, where people scarce
cared to perform the ceremony of welcome at sight of
my glum face. As for my wife, all the world liked her, and
agreed in pitying her. I don’t know how the report got
abroad, but ’twas generally agreed that I treated her with
awful cruelty, and that for jealousy I was a perfect Blue-
beard. Ah, me ! . And so it is true that I have had many
dark hours ; that I pass days in long silence ; that the
conversation of fools and whipper-snappers makes me
rebellious and peevish, and that, when I feel contempt,
I sometimes don’t know how to conceal it, or I should say
did not. I hope as I grow older I grow more charitable.
Because I do not love bawling and galloping after a fox,
like the captain yonder, I am not his superior ; but, in
this respect,, humbly own that he is mine. He has per-
ceptions which are denied me ; enjoyments which I cannot
understand. Because I am blind the world is not dark.
I try now and listen with respect when Squire Codgers
talks of the day’s run. I do my best to laugh when Captain
Rattleton tells his garrison stories. I step up to the
harpsichord with old Miss Humby (our neighbour from
Beccles) and try and listen as she warbles her ancient
ditties. I play whist laboriously. Am I not trying to
do the duties of life ? and I have a right to be garrulous
and egotistical, because I have been reading Montaigne all
the morning.
I was not surprised, knowing by what influences my
brother was led, to find his name in the list of Virginia
burgesses who declared that the sole right of imposing
taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now, and ever
hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House
of Burgesses, and called upon the other colonies to pray
for the royal interposition in favour of the violated rights
of America. And it was now, after we had been some
three years settled in our English home, that a corre-
spondence between us and Madam Esmond began to take
place. It was my wife who (upon some pretext such as
INVENI PORTDM
909
women always know how to find) re-established the relations
between us. Mr. Miles mast need have the small-pox,
from which he miraculously recovered without losing any
portion of his beauty ; and on this recovery the mother
writes her prettiest little wheedling letter to the grand-
mother of the fortunate babe. She coaxes her with all
sorts of modest phrases and humble offerings of respect
and goodwill. She narrates anecdotes of the precocious
genius of the lad (what hath subsequently happened,
I wonder, to stop the growth of that gallant young officer’s
brains ?), and she must have sent over to his grandmother
a lock of the darling boy’s hair, for the old lady, in her
reply, acknowledged the receipt of some such present. I
wonder, as it came from England, they allowed it to pass
our custom-house at Williamsburg. In return for these
peace-offerings and smuggled tokens of submission, comes a
tolerably gracious letter from my Lady of Castlewood.
She inveighs against the* dangerous spirit pervading the
colony : she laments to think that her unhappy son is
consorting with people who, she fears, will be no better than
rebels and traitors. She does not wonder, considering
who his friends and advisers are. How can a wife taken
from an almost menial situation be expected to sympathize
with persons of rank and dignity who have the honour
of the Crown at heart ? If evil times were coming for
the monarchy (for the folks in America appeared to be
disinclined to pay taxes, and required that everything
should be done for them without cost), she remembered
how to monarchs in misfortune, the Esmonds — ^her father,
the marquis, especially — ^had ever been faithful. She
knew not what opinions (though she might judge from
my new-fangled Lord Chatham) were in fashion in England.
She prayed, at least, she might hear that one of her sons
was not on the side of rebellion. When we came, in after-
days, to look over old family papers in Virginia, we found
‘ Letters from my daughter Lady Warrington,’ neatly tied
up with a ribbon. My lady Theo insisted I should not open
them ; and the truth, I believe is, that they were so full
of praises of her husband that she thought my vanity-
would suffer from reading them.
When madam began to write, she gave us brief notices
of Harry and his wife. ^The two women,’ she wrote,*
‘ still govern everything with my poor boy at Fannystown
910
THE VIRGINIANS
(as he chooses to call his house). They must save money
there, for I hear but a shabby account of their manner of
entertaining. The Mount Vernon gentleman continues
to be his great friend, and he votes in the House of Bur-
gesses very much as his guide advises him. Why he should
be so sparing of his money I cannot understand : I heard,
of five negroes who went with his equipages to my Lord
Bottetourt’s, only two had shoes to their feet. I had
reasons to save, having sons for whom I wished to provide,
but he hath no children, wherein he certainly is spared
from much grief, though, no doubt. Heaven in its wisdom
means our good by the trials which, through our children,
it causes us to endure. His mother-in-law,’ she added
in one of her letters, ‘has been ailing. Ever since his
marriage, my poor Henry has been the creature of these
two artful women, and they rule him entirely. Nothing,
my dear daughter, is more contrary to common sense and
to Holy Scripture than this. Are we not told, Wives,
be obedient to your husbands 9 Had Mr. Warrington lived,
I should have endeavoured to follow up that sacred precept,
holding that nothing so becomes a woman as humility and
obedience^
Presently we had a letter sealed with black, and announc-
ing the death of our dear good Mountain, for whom I had
a hearty regret and affection, remembering her sincere love
for us as children. Harry deplored the event in his honest
way, and with tears which actually blotted his paper.
And Madam Esmond, alluding to the circumstance, said :
‘ My late housekeeper, Mrs. Mountain, as soon as she found
her illness was fatal, sent to me, requesting a last interview
on her death-bed, intending, doubtless, to pray my forgive-
ness for her treachery towards me. I sent her word that
I could forgive her as a Christian, and heartily hope (though
I confess I doubt it) that she had a due sense of her crime
towards me. But our meeting, I considered, was- of no
use, and could only occasion unpleasantness between us.
If she repented, though at the eleventh hour, it was not too
late, and I sincerely trusted that she was now doing so.
And, would you believe her lamentable and hardened
condition, she sent me word through Dinah, my woman,
whom I dispatched to her with medicines for her souVs and
her body^s health, that she had nothing to repent of as far
as regarded her conduct to me, and she wanted to be left
ESVENI PORTUM
911
alone I Poor Dinah distributed the medicine to my
negroes, and our people took it eagerly — whilst Mrs. Moun-
tain, left to herself, succumbed to the fever. Oh, the
perversity of human kind ! This poor creature was too
'proud to take my remedies, and is now beyond the reach
of cure and physicians. You tell me your little Miles is
subject to fits of colic. My remedy, and I will beg you to
let me know if effectual, is, &c. &c.’ — ^and here followed the
prescription, which thou didst not take, 0 my son, my
heir, and my pride ! because thy fond mother had her
mother’s favourite powder, on which in his infantine
troubles our first-born was dutifully nurtured. Did words
not exactly consonant with truth pass between the ladies
in their correspondence ? I fear my lady Theo was not
altogether candid ; else how to account for a phrase in
one of Madam Esmond’s letters, who said : ‘ I am glad
to hear the powders have done the dear child good. They
are, if not on a first, on a second or third application,
almost infallible^ and have been the blessed means of re-
lieving many persons round me, both infants and adults,
white and coloured. I send my grandson an Indian bow
and arrows. Shall these old eyes never behold him at
Castlewood, I wonder, and is Sir George so busy with his
books and his politics that he can’t afford a few months
to his mother in Virginia ? I am much alone now. My
son’s chamber is just as he left it : the same books are in
the presses : his little hanger and fowling-piece over the
bed, and my father’s picture over the mantelpiece. I never
allow anything to be altered in his room or his brother’s.
I fancy the cfildren playing near me sometimes, and that
I can see my dear father’s head as he dozes in his chair.
Mine is growing almost as white as my father’s. Am I never
to behold my children ere I go hence ? The Lord’s will
be done.’
912
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER LXXXVI
AT HOME
TJCH an appeal as this of our
mother wouldhave softenedhearts
much less obdurate than ours ;
and we talked of a speedy visit
to Virginia, and of hiring all the
Yowng BackeVs cabin accommo-
dation. But our child must fall
in, for whom the voyage would be
dangerous, and from whom the
mother of course could not part ;
and the Young Rachel made her
voyage without us that year.
Another year there was another
difficulty, in my worship’s first
attack of the gout (which occupied
me a good deal, and afterwards
certainly cleared my wits and en-
livened my spirits) ; and now came another much sadder
cause for delay in the sad news we received from Jamaica.
Some two years after our establishment at the Manor,
our dear general returned from his government, a little
richer in the world’s goods than when he went away, but
having undergone a loss for which no wealth could console
him, and after which, indeed, he did not care to remain
in the West Indies. My Theo’s poor mother — ^the most
tender and affectionate friend (save one) I have ever had —
died abroad of the fever. Her last regret was that she
should not be allowed to live to see our children and our-
selves in prosperity.
‘ She sees us, though we do not see her ; and she thanks
you, George, for having been good to her children,’ her
husband said.
He, we thought, would not be long ere he joined her.
His love for her had been the happiness and business of his
whole life. To be away from her seemed living no more.
It was pitiable to watch the good man as he sat with us.
My wife, in her air and in iffany tones and gestures, con-
AT HOME
913
stantly recalled her mother to the bereaved widower’s heart.
What cheer we could give him in his calamity we offered ;
but, especially, little Hetty was now, under Heaven, his
chief support and consolation. She had refused more
than one advantageous match in the Island, the general
told us ; and on her return to England, my Lord Wrotham’s
heir laid himself at her feet. But she loved best to stay with
her father, Hetty said. As long as he was not tired
of her she cared for no husband.
‘ Nay,’ said we, when this last great match was proposed,
‘ let the general stay six months with us at the Manor here,
and you can have him at Oakhurst for the other six.’
But Hetty declared her father never could bear Oakhurst
again now that her mother was gone ; and she would marry
no man for his coronet and money — ^not she ! The general,
when we talked this matter over, said gravely that the
child had no desire for marrying, owing possibly to some
disappointment in early life, of which she never spoke ;
and we, respecting her feelings, were for our parts equally
silent. My brother Lambert had by this time a college
living near to Winchester, and a wife of course to adorn
his parsonage. We professed but a moderate degree of
liking for this lady, though w^e made her welcome when
she came to us. Her idea regarding our poor Hetty’s
determined celibacy was different to that which I had.
This Mrs. Jack was a chatterbox of a woman, in the habit
of speaking her mind very freely, and of priding herself
excessively on her skill in giving pain to her friends.
‘ My dear Sir George,’ she was pleased to say, ‘ I have
often and often told our dear Theo that I wouldn’t have a
pretty sister in my house to make tea for Jack when I was
upstairs, and always to be at hand when I was wanted in
the kitchen or nursery, and always to be dressed neat and
in her best when I was very likely making pies or puddings
or looking to the children. I have every confidence in
Jack, of course. I should like to see him look at another
woman, indeed ! And so I have in Jemima ; but they
don’t come together in my house when /’m upstairs — ^that
I promise you ! And so I told my sister Warrington.’
‘ Am I to understand,’ says the general, ‘ that you have
done my Lady Warrington the favour to warn her against
her sister, my daughter Miss Hester ? ’
' Yes, pa, of course I have. A duty is a duty, and
914
THE VIRGINIANS
a woman is a woman, and a man’s a man, as I know very
wen. Don’t tell me ! He is a man. Every man is a man,
with all his sanctified airs ! ’
‘You yourself have a married sister, with whom you
were staying when my son Jack first had the happiness of
making your acquaintance ? ’ remarks the general.
‘Yes, of course, I have a married sister; every one
knows that ; and I have been as good as a mother to her
children, that I have ! ’
‘ And am I to gather from your conversation that your
attractions proved a powerful temptation for your sister’s
husband ? ’
‘ Law, general ! I don’t know how you can go for to say
I ever said any such a thing ! ’ cries Mrs. Jack, red and
voluble.
‘Don’t you perceive, my dear madam, that it is you
who have insinuated as much, not only regarding yourself,
but regarding my own tw^o daughters ? ’
‘ Never, never, never, as I’m a Christian woman ! And
it’s most cruel of you to say so, sir. And I do say a sister
is best out of the house, that I do ! And as Theo’s time
is coming, I warn her, that’s all.’
‘ Have you discovered, my good madam, whether my
poor Hetty has stolen any of the spoons ? When I came
to breakfast this morning, my daughter was alone, and
there must have been a score of pieces of silver on the
table.’
‘ Law, sir I who ever said a word about spoons ? Did
I ever accuse the poor dear ? If I did, may I drop down
dead at this moment on this hearthrug ! And I ain’t
used to be spoke to in this way. And me and Jack have
both remarked it ; and I’ve done my duty, that I have.’
And here Mrs. Jack flounces out of the room, in tears.
‘ And has the woman had the impudence to tell you this,
my child ? ’ asks the general, when Theo (who is a little
delicate) comes to the tea-table.
‘ She has told me every day since she has been here. She
comes into my dressing-room to teU me. She comes to my
nursery, and says, “ Adi, I wouldn’t have a sister prowling
about my nursery, that I wouldn’t.” Ah, how pleasant it
is to have amiable and well-bred relatives, say I.’
‘ Thy poor mother has been spared this woman,’ groans
the general.
AT HOME
915
^ Our mother would have made her better, papa,’ says
Theo, kissing him.
‘ Yes, dear.’ And I see that both of them are at their
prayers.
But this must be owned, that to love one’s relatives is not
always an easy task ; to live with one’s neighbours is some-
times not amusing. From Jack Lambert’s demeanour
next day, I could see that his wife had given him her
version of the conversation. Jack was sulky, but not
dignified. He was angry, but his anger did not prevent his
appetite. He preached a sermon for us which was entirely
stupid. And little Miles, once more in sables, sat at his
grandfather’s side, his little hand placed in that of the kind
old man.
Would he stay and keep house for us during our Virginian
trip ? The housekeeper should be put under the full domi-
nation of Hetty. The butler’s keys should be handed over
to him; for Gumbo, not I thought with an over good
grace, was to come with us to Virginia : having, it must
be premised, united himself with Mhs. Molly in the bonds of
matrimony, and peopled a cottage in my park with sundry
tawny Gumbos. Under the care of our good general and
his daughter we left our house then ; we travelled to London,
and thence to Bristol, and our obsequious agent there had
the opportunity of declaring that he should offer up prayers
for our prosperity, and of vowing that children so beautiful
as ours (we had an infant by this time to accompany Miles)
were never seen on any ship before. We made a voyage
without accident. How strange the feeling was as we
landed from our boat at Eichmond ! A coach and a host of
negroes were there in waiting to receive us ; and hard by
a gentleman on horseback, with negroes in our hvery, too,
who sprang from his horse and rushed up to embrace us.
Not a little charmed were both of us to see our dearest
Hal. He rode with us to our mother’s door. Yonder she
stood on the steps to welcome us : and Theo knelt down to
ask her blessing.
Harry rode in the coach with us as far as our mother’s
house ; but would not, as he said, spoil sport by entering
with us. ‘ She sees me,’ he owned, ‘ and we are pretty
good friends ; but Fanny and she are best apart ; and there
is no love lost between ’em, I can promise you. Come
over to me at the Tavern, George, when thou art free.
916
THE VraGINIAJSFS
And to-morrow I shall have the honour to present her
sister to Theo. ’Twas only from happening to be in town
yesterday that I heard the ship was signalled, and waited to
see you. I have sent a negro boy home to my wife, and
she’ll be here to pay her respects to my Lady Warrington.’
And Harry, after this brief greeting, jumped out of the
carriage, and left us to meet our mother alone.
Since I parted from her I had seen a great deal of fine
company, and Theo and I had paid our respects to the king
and queen at St. James’s ; but we had seen no more stately
person than this who welcomed us, and raising my wife from
her knee, embraced her and led her into the house. ’Twas
a plain, wood-built place, with a gallery round, as our
Virginian houses are ; but if it had been a palace, with a
little empress inside, our reception could not have been
more courteous. There was old Nathan, still the major-
domo, a score of kind black faces of blacks, grinning wel-
come. Some whose names I remembered as children were
grown out of remembrance, to be sure, to be buxom lads and
lasses ; and some I had left with black pates were grizzling
now with snowy polls : and some who were born since my
time were peering at doorways with their great eyes and
little naked feet. It was, ‘ I’m little Sip, Master George ! ’
and ‘ I’m Dinah, Sir George ! ’ and ^ I’m Master Miles’s boy ! ’
says a little chap in a new livery and boots of nature’s
blacking. Ere the day was over the whole household had
found a pretext for passing before us, and grinning and
bowing and making us welcome. I don’t know how many
repasts were served to us. In the evening my Lady War-
rington had to receive all the gentry of the little town, which
she did with perfect grace and good humour, and I had to
shake hands with a few old acquaintances — old enemies
I was going to say ; but I had come into a fortune and was
no longer a naughty prodigal. Why, a drove of fatted
calves was killed in my honour ! My poor Hal was of the
entertainment, but gloomy and crestfallen. His mother
spoke to him, but it was as a queen to a rebellious prince,
her son, who was not yet forgiven. We two slipped away
from the company, and went up to the rooms assigned to
me : but there, as we began a free conversation, our mother,
taper in hand, appeared with her pale face. Did I want
anything ? Was everything quite as I wished it ? She had
peeped in at the dearest children, who were sleeping like
AT HOME
917
cherubs. How she did caress them, and delight over them !
How she was charmed with Miles’s dominating airs, and
the little Theo’s smiles and dimples ! ‘ Supper is just
coming on the table. Sir George. If you like our cookery
better than the Tavern, Henry, I beg you to stay.’ What
a different welcome there was in the words and tone addressed
to each of us ! Hal hung down his head, and followed to the
lower room. A clergyman begged a blessing on the meal.
He touched with not a little art and eloquence upon our
arrival at home, upon our safe passage across the stormy
waters, upon the love and forgiveness which awaited us in
the mansions of the Heavenly Parent when the storms of
life were over.
Here was a new clergyman, quite unlike some whom
I remembered about us in earlier days, and I praised him,
but Madam Esmond shook her head. She was afraid his
principles were very dangerous : she was afraid others had
adopted those dangerous principles. Had I not seen the
paper signed by the burgesses and merchants at Williams-
burg the year before — ^the Lees, Randolphs, Bassets,
Washingtons, and the like, and oh, my dear, that I should
have to say it, our name, that is your brother’s (by what
influence I do not like to say), and this unhappy Mr. Bel-
man’s who begged a blessing last night.
If there had been quarrels in our little colonial society
when I left home, what were these to the feuds I found
raging on my return ? We had sent the Stamp Act to
America, and been forced to repeal it. Then we must try
a new set of duties on glass, paper, and what not, and repeal
that Act too, with the exception of a duty on tea. Erom
Boston to Charleston the tea was confiscated. Even my
mother, loyal as she was, gave up her favourite drink ;
and my poor wife would have had to forgo hers, but
we had brought a quantity for our private drinking on
board ship, which had paid four times as much duty at
home. Not that I for my part would have hesitated
about paying duty. The home government must have
some means of revenue, or its pretensions to authority
were idle. They say the colonies were tried and tyrannized
over ; I say the home government was tried and tyrannized
over. (’Tis but an affair of argument and history, now ; we
tried the question, and were beat ; and the matter is settled
as completely as the conquest of Britain by the Normans.)
918
THE VIRGINIANS
And all along, from conviction I trust, I own to have taken
the British side of the quarrel. In that brief and unfor-
tunate experience of war which I had had in my early life,
the universal cry of the army and well-affected persons
was, that Mr. Braddock’s expedition had failed, and defeat
and disaster had fallen upon us in consequence of the remiss-
ness, the selfishness, and the rapacity of many of the very
people for whose defence against the French arms had been
taken up. The colonists were for having all done for them,
and for doing nothing. They made extortionate bargains
with the champions who came to defend them ; they
failed in contracts ; they furnished niggardly supplies ;
they multiplied delays until the hour for beneficial action
was past, and until the catastrophe came which never need
have occurred but for their ill will. What shouts of joy
were there, and what ovations for the great British minister
who had devised and effected the conquest of Canada !
Monsieur de Vaudreuil said justly that that conquest was
the signal for the defection of the North American colonies
from their allegiance to Great Britain ; and my Lord
Chatham, having done his best to achieve the first part
of the scheme, contributed more than any man in England
towards the completion of it. The colonies were insurgent,
and he applauded their rebellion. What scores of thousands
of waverers must he have encouraged into resistance ! It
was a general who says to an army in revolt, ‘ God save the
king ! My men, you have a right to mutiny ! ’ No wonder
they set, up his statue in this town, and his picture in
t’other ; whilst here and there they hanged ministers and
governors in effigy. To our Virginian town of Williamsburg,
some wiseacres must subscribe to bring over a portrait of
my lord, in the habit of a Roman orator speaking in the
Forum, to be sure, and pointing to the palace of Whitehall,
and the special window out of which Charles I was beheaded !
Here was a neat allegory, and a pretty compliment to a
British statesman ! I hear, however, that my lord’s head
was painted from a bust, and so was taken off without his
knowledge.
Now my country is England, not America or Virginia :
and I take, or rather took, the English side of the dispute.
My sympathies had always been with home, where I was
now a squire and a citizen : but had my lot been to plant
tobacco, and live on the banks of James River or Potomac,
AT HOME
919
no doubt' my opinions had been altered. When, for instance,
I visited my brother at his new house and plantation, I
found him and his wife as stanch Americans as we were
British. We had some words upon the matter in dispute, —
who had not in those troublesome times ? — ^but our argument
was carried on without rancour ; even my new sister could
not bring us to that, though she did her best when we were
together, and in the curtain lectures which I have no doubt
she inflicted on her spouse, like a notable housewife as she
was. But we trusted in each other so entirely that even
Harry’s duty towards his wife would not make him quarrel
with his brother. He loved me from old time, when my
word was law with him ; he still protested that he and
every Virginian gentleman of his side was loyal to the
Crown. War was not declared as yet, and gentlemen of
different opinions were courteous enough to one another.
Nay, at our public dinners and festivals, the health of the
king was still ostentatiously drunk; and the assembly of every
colony, though preparing for Congress, though resisting
all attempts at taxation on the part of the home authorities,
was loud in its expressions of regard for the king our father,
and pathetic in its appeals to that paternal sovereign to
put away evil counselJors from him, and listen to the voice
of moderation and reason. Up to the last, our Virginian
gentry were a grave, orderly, aristocratic folk, with the
strongest sense of their own dignity and station. In later
days, and nearer home, we have heard of fraternization and
equality. Amongst the great folks of our Old World I have
never seen a gentleman standing more on his dignity and
maintaining it better than Mr. Washington : no — ^not the king
against whom he took arms. In the eyes of aU the gentry
of the French Court, who gaily joined in the crusade against
us, and so took their revenge for Canada, the great American
chief always appeared as aifiax andron, and they allowed
that his better could not be seen in Versailles itself. Though
they were quarrelling with the governor, the gentlemen of
the House of Burgesses still maintained amicable relations
with him, and exchanged dignified courtesies. When my
Lord Bottetourt arrived, and held his court at Williamsburg
in no small splendour and state, all the gentry waited upon
him, Madam Esmond included. And at his death, Lord
Dunmore, who succeeded him, and brought a fine family
with him, was treated with the utmost respect by our
920
THE VIRGINIANS
gentry privately, though publicly the House of Assembly
and the governor were at war.
Their quarrels are a matter of history, and concern me
personally only so far as this, that our burgesses being
convened for the 1st of March in the year after my arrival
in Virginia, it was agreed that we should aU pay a visit to
our capital, and our duty to the governor. Since Harry’s
unfortunate marriage Madam Esmond had not performed
this duty, though always previously accustomed to pay it ;
but now that her eldest son was arrived in the colony, my
mother opined that we must certainly wait upon his
excellency the governor, nor were we sorry, perhaps, to get
away from our little Richmond to enjoy the gaieties of the
provincial capital. Madam engaged, and at a great price,
the best house to be had at Richmond for herself and her
family. Now I was rich, her generosity was curious.
I had more than once to interpose (her old servants likewise
wondering at her new way of life), and beg her not to be so
lavish. But she gently said, in former days she had occa-
sion to save, wMch now existed no more. Harry had
enough, sure, with such a wife as he had taken out of the
housekeeper’s room. J£ she chose to be a little extravagant
now, why should she hesitate ? She had not her dearest
daughter and grandchildren with her every day (she fell in
love with all three of them, and spoiled them as much as
they were capable of being spoiled) . Besides, in former days
I certainly could not accuse her of too much extravagance,
and this J think was almost the only allusion she made to
the pecuniary differences between us. So she had her
people dressed in their best, and her best wines, plate, and
furniture from Castlewood by sea at no small charge, and
her dress in which she had been married in George II’s reign,
and we all flattered ourselves that our coach made the
greatest figure of any except his excellency ’'s, and we
engaged Signor Eormicalo, his excellency’s major-domo,
to superintend the series of feasts that were given in my
honour; and more fiesh-pots were set a-stewing in our
kitchens in one month, our servants said, than had been
known in the family since the young gentlemen went away.
So great was Theo’s influence over my mother that she
actually persuaded her, that year, to receive our sister
Fanny, Hal’s wife, who would have stayed upon the planta-
tion rather than face Madam Esmond. But, trusting to
AT HOME
921
Theo’s promise of amnesty, Fanny (to whose house we had
paid more than one visit) came up to town, and made her
curtsy to Madam Esmond, and was forgiven. And rather
than be forgiven in that way, I own, for my part, that
I would prefer perdition or utter persecution.
‘ You know these, my dear ? ’ says Madam Esmond,
pointing to her jSne silver sconces. ‘Fanny hath often
cleaned them when she was with me at Castlewood. And
this dress, too, Fanny knows, I dare say ? Her poor mother
had the care of it. I always had the greatest confidence in
her.’
Here there is wrath flashing from Fanny’s eyes, which
our mother, who has forgiven her, does not perceive — ^not
she !
‘ Oh, she was a treasure to me ! ’ madam resumes. ‘ I
never should have nursed my boys through their illnesses
but for your mother’s admirable care of them. Colonel Lee,
permit me to present you to my daughter, my Lady War-
rington. Her ladyship is a neighbour of your relatives the
Bunburys at home. Here comes his excellency. Wel-
come, my lord 1 ’
And our princess performs before his lordship one of those
curtsies of which she was not a little proud ; and I fancy
I see some of the company venturing to smile.
‘ By George ! madam,’ says Mr. Lee, ‘ since Count
Borulawski, I have not seen a bow so elegant as your
ladyship’s.’
‘ And pray, sir, who was Count Borulawski ? ’ asks
madam.
‘ He was a nobleman high in favour with his Polish
majesty,’ replies Mr. Lee. ‘May I ask you, madapi, to
present me to your distinguished son ? ’
‘ This is Sir George Warrington,’ says my mother,
pointing to me.
‘ Pardon me, madam. I meant Captain Warrington,
who was by Mr. Wolfe’s side when he died. I had been
contented to share his fate, so I had been near him.’
And the ardent Lee swaggers up to Harry, and takes
his hand with respect, and pays him a compliment or tw^o^
which makes me, at least, pardon him for his late imper-
tinence : for my dearest Hal walks gloomily through his
mother’s rooms, in his old uniform of the famous corps
which he has quitted.
922
THE VIRGINIANS
We had had many meetings, which the stem mother
could not interrupt, and in which that instinctive love
which bound us to one another, and which nothing could
destroy, had opportunity to speak. Entirely unlike each
other in our pursuits, our tastes, our opinions — ^his life being
one of eager exercise, active sport, and aU the amusements
of the field, while mine is to dawdle over books and spend
my time in languid self-contemplation — we have, neverthe-
less, had such a sympathy as almost passes the love of
women. My poor Hal confessed as much to me, for his
part, in his artless manner, when we went away without
wives or womankind, except a few negroes left in the place,
and passed a week at Castlewood together.
The ladies did not love each other. I know enough of
my lady Theo, to see after a very few glances whether or
not she takes a liking to another of her amiable sex. All
my powers of persuasion or command fail to change the
stubborn creature’s opinion. Had she ever said a word
against Mrs. This or Mss That ? Not she ! Has she been
otherwise than civil ? No, assuredly ! My lady Theo is
polite to a beggar-woman, treats her kitchen-maids like
duchesses, and murmurs a compliment to the dentist for
his elegant manner of pulling her tooth out. She would
black my boots, or clean the grate, if I ordained it (always
looking like a duchess the while) ; but as soon as I say to her,
‘ My dear creature, be fond of this lady, or t’other ! ’ all
obedience ceases ; she executes the most refilned curtsies ;
smiles and kisses even to order; but performs that mysterious
undefinable free-masonic signal, which passes between
women, by which each knows that the other hates her. So,
with regard to Eanny, we had met at her house, and at
others. I remembered her affectionately from old days,
I fuUy credited poor Hal’s violent protests and tearful oaths,
that, by George, it was our mother’s persecution which made
him marry her. He couldn’t stand by and see a poor thing
tortured as she wa^, without coming to her rescue ; no, by
Heavens, he couldn’t ! I say I believed all this ; and had
for -my sister-in-law a genuine compassion, as well as an
early regard ; and yet I had no love to give her ; and,
in reply to Hal’s passionate outbreaks in praise of her
beauty and worth, and eager queries to me whether I did
not think her a perfect paragon, I could only answer with
faint compliments or vague approval, feeling all the while
AT HOME
923
that I was disappointing my poor ardent fellow, and cursing
inwardly that revolt against flattery and falsehood into
which I sometimes frantically rush. Why should I not
say, ‘ Yes, dear Hal, thy wife is a paragon ; her singing
is delightful, her hair and shape are beautiful ; ’ as I might
have said by a little common stretch of politeness ? Why
could I not cajole this or that stupid neighbour or relative,
as I have heard Theo do a thousand times, flnding all sorts
of lively prattle to amuse them, 'whilst I sit before them
dumb and gloomy ? I say it w^as a sin not to have more
words to say in praise of Fanny. We ought to have praised
her, we ought to have liked her. My Lady Warrington
certainly ought to have liked her, for she can play the
hypocrite, and I cannot. And there was this young
creature, — ^pretty, graceful, shaped like a nymph, with
beautiful black eyes — and we cared for them no more
than for two gooseberries ! At Warrington my wife and
I, when we pretended to compare notes, elaborately com-
plimented each other on our new sister’s beauty. What
lovely eyes ! — Oh, yes ! What a sweet little dimple on her
chin ! — Ah, oui I What wonderful little feet ! — ^Perfectly
Chinese ! where should we in London get slippers small
enough for her ? And, these compliments exhausted,
we knew that we did not like Fanny the value of one
penny-piece ; we knew that we disliked her ; we knew that
we ha . . . Well, what hypocrites women are ! We heard
from many quarters how eagerly my brother had taken up
the new anti-English opinion, and what a champion he
was of sp-called American rights and freedom. ‘ It is her
doing, my dear,’ says I to my wife. ‘ If I had said so
much, I am sure you would have scolded me,’ says my
Lady Warrington, laughing : and I did straightway begin
to scold her, and say it was most cruel of her to suspect
her new sister ; and what earthly right had we to do so ?
But I say again, I know Madam Theo so well, that when
once she has got a prejudice against a person in her little
head, not all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men will
get it out again. I vow nothing would induce her to believe
that Harry was not henpecked — ^nothing.
Well, we went to Castlewood together without the
women, and stayed at the dreary, dear old place, where
we had been so happy, and I, at least, so gloomy. It was
winter, and duck time, and Harry went away to the river,
THE VIRGINIANS
m
and shot dozens and scores and bushels of canvas-backs,
whilst I remained in my grandfather’s library amongst
the old mouldering books which I loved in my childhood —
which I see in a dim vision still resting on a little boy’s
lap, as he sits by an old white-headed gentleman’s knee.
I read my books ; I slept in my own bed and room —
religiously kept, as my mother told me, and left as on the
day when I went to Europe. Hal’s cheery voice would
wake me, as of old. Like all men who love to go afield,
he was an early riser : he would come and wake me, and
sit on the foot of the bed and perfume the air with his
morning pipe, as the house negroes laid great logs on the
fire. It was a happy time ! Old Nathan had told me
of cunning crypts where ancestral rum and claret were
deposited. We had had cares, struggles, battles, bitter
griefs, and disappointments ; we were boys again as we
sat there together. I am a boy now even, as I think of
the time.
That unlucky tea-tax, which, alone of the taxes lately
imposed upon the colonies, the home government was
determined to retain, was met with defiance throughout
America. ’Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound at home,
and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston ;
but as a question of principle, the impost was refused by
the provinces, which indeed ever showed a most spirited
determination to pay as little as they could help. In
Charleston, the tea-ships were unloaded, and the cargoes
stored in cellars. From New York and Philadelphia,
the vessels were turned back to London. In Boston
(where there was an armed force, whom the inhabitants
were perpetually mobbing), certain patriots, painted and
disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, and fiung the
obnoxious cargoes into the water. The wrath of our
white Father was kindled against the city of Mohocks in
masquerade. The notable Boston Port Bill was brought
forward in the British House of Commons ; the port was
closed, and the Custom House removed to Salem. The
Massachusetts Charter was annulled ; and, — ^in just appre-
hension that riots might ensue, in dealing with the per-
petrators of which the colonial courts might be led to
act partially, — ^Parliament decreed that persons indicted
for acts of violence and armed resistance, might be sent
home, or to another colony, for triali If such acts set
AT HOME
925
all America in a iSame, they certainly drove all well-wishers
of our country into a fury. I might have sentenced
Master Miles Warrington, at five years old, to a whipping,
and he would have cried, taken down his little small-clothes
and submitted ; but suppose I offered (and he richly
deserving it), to chastise Captain Miles of the Prince’s
Dragoons ? He would whirl my paternal cane out of
my hand, box my hair-powder out of my ears. Lord
a-mercy ! I tremble at the very idea of the controversy !
He would assert his iride'peridenoe in a word ; and if, I say,
I think the home Parliament had a right to levy taxes in
the colonies, I own that we took means most captious,
most insolent, most irritating, and, above all, most impo-
tent, to assert our claim.
My Lord Dunmore, our Governor of Virginia, upon
Lord Bottetourt’s death, received me into some intimacy
soon after my arrival in the colony, being willing to live
on good terms with all our gentry. My mother’s severe
loyalty was no secret to him ; indeed, she waved the
king’s baimer in all companies, and talked so loudly and
resolutely, that Randolph, and Patrick Henry himseff,
were struck dumb before her. It was Madam Esmond’s
celebrated reputation for loyalty (his excellency laughingly
told me) which induced him to receive her eldest son to
grace.
^ I have had the worst character of you from home,’
his lordship said. ‘ Little birds whisper to me, Sir George,
that you are a man of the most dangerous principles. You
are a friend of Mr. Wilkes and Alderman Beckford. I am
not sure you have not been at Medmenham Abbey. You
have lived with players, poets, and all sorts of wild people.
I have been warned against you, sir, and I find you ’
‘Not so black as I have been painted,’ I interrupted
his lordship with a smile.
‘ Faith,’ says my lord, ‘ if I tell Sir George Warrington
that he seems to me a very harmless quiet gentleman,
and that ’tis a great relief to me to talk to him amidst
these loud politicians ; these lawyers with their perpetual
noise about Greece and Rome ; these Virginian squires
who are for ever professing their loyalty and respect, whilst
they are shaking their fists in my face — I hope nobody
overhears us,’ says my lord, with an arch smile, ‘and
nobody will carry my opinions home.’
THE VIRGINIANS
926
His lordship’s ill opinion having been removed by a better
knowledge of me, our acquaintance daily grew more
intimate ; and, especially between the ladies of his family
and my own, a close friendship arose — between them and
my wife at least. Hal’s wife, received kindly at the little
provincial court, as all ladies were, made herself by no
means popular there by the hot and eager political tone
which she adopted. She assailed all the government
measures with indiseriminating . acrimony. Were they
lenient ? She said the perfi^ous British government
w’as only preparing a snare, and biding its time until it
could forge heavier chains for unhappy America. Were
they angry ? Why did not every American citizen rise,
assert his rights as a freeman, and serve every British
governor, of&cer, soldier, as they had treated the East
India Company’s tea ? My mother, on the other hand,
was pleased to express her opinions with equal frankness,
and, indeed, to press her advice upon his excellency with
a volubility which may have fatigued that representative
of the sovereign. Call out the militia ; send for fresh
troops from New York, from home, from anywhere ;
lock up the Capitol ! (this advice was followed it must
be owned) and send every one of the ringleaders amongst
those wicked burgesses to prison ! was Madam Esmond’s
daily counsel to the governor by word and letter. And
if not only the burgesses but the burgesses’ wives could
have been led off to punishment and captivity, I think
this Brutus of a woman would scarce have appealed against
the sentence.
927
CHAPTER LXXXVII
THE LAST OE ‘ GOD SAVE THE KIKG ’
HAT perverse law of
Fate is it, that ever
places me in a
minority ? Should a
law he proposed to
hand over this realm
to the Pretender of
Rome, or the Grand
Turk, and submit it
to thenewso verei gn’s
religion, it might
pass, as I should
certainly be voting against it. At home in Virginia,
I found myself disagreeing with everybody as usual. By
the Patriots I was voted (as indeed I professed myself
to be) a Tory ; by the Tories I was presently declared to
be a dangerous Republican. The time was utterly out
of joint, 0 cursed spite ! Ere I had been a year in
Virginia, how I wished myself back by the banks of Wave-
ney ! But the aspect of affairs was so troublous, that
I could not leave my mother, a lone lady, to face possible
war and disaster, nor would she quit the country at such
a juncture, nor should a man of spirit leave it. At his
excellency’s table, and over his excellency’s plentiful
claret, that point was agreed on by numbers of the well
affected, that vow was vowed over countless brimming
bumpers. No : it was statue signum, signifer ! We
Cavaliers would all rally round it : and at these times, our
governor talked like the bravest of the brave.
Now, I will say, of all my Virginian acquaintance. Madam
Esmond was the most consistent. Our gentlefolks had
come in numbers to Williamsburg ; and a great number
of them proposed to treat her excellency, the governor’s
lady, to a ball, when the news reached us of the Boston
Port Bill. Straightway the House of Burgesses adopts
an indignant protest against this measure of the British
Parliament, and decrees a solemn day of fast and humilia-
928
THE VIRGINIANS
tion throughout the country, and of solemn prayer to
Heaven to avert the calamity of civil war. Meanwhile,
the invitation to my Lady Dunmore having been already
given and accepted, the gentlemen agreed that their ball
should take place on the appointed evening, and then sack-
cloth and ashes should be assumed some days afterwards.
‘ A baU 1 ’ says Madam Esmond. ‘ I go to a baU which
is given by a set of rebels who are going publicly to insult
his Majesty a week afterwards ! I will die sooner ! ’
And she wrote to the gentlemen who were stewards for
the occasion to say, that viewing the dangerous state of the
country, she, for her part, could not think of attending a baU.
What was her surprise then, the next time she went
abroad in her chair, to be cheered by a hundred persons,
white and black, and shouts of ^ Huzzah, madam ! ’
‘ Heaven bless your ladyship ! ’ They evidently thought
her patriotism had caused her determination not to go
to the ball.
Madam, that there should be no mistake, puts her
head out of the chair, and cries out ‘God save the king’,
as loud as she can. The people cried ‘ God save the king
too. Everybody cried ‘ God save the king ’ in those days. On
the night of that entertainment, my poor Harry, as a
Burgess of the House, and one of the givers of the feast,
donned his uniform red coat of Wolfe’s (which he so soon
was to exchange for another colour) and went off with
Madam Fanny to the ball. My Lady Warrington and her
humble servant, as being strangers in the country, and
English people as it were, were permitted by madam to
attend the assembly from which she of course absented
herself. I had the honour to dance a country dance with
the lady of Mount Vernon, whom I found a most lively,
pretty, and amiable partner ; but am bound to say that
my ^e’s praises of her were received with a very grim
acceptance by my mother, when Lady Warrington came
to recount the events of the evening. Could not Sir George
Warrington have danced with my Lady Dunmore or her
daughters, or with anybody but Mrs. Washington ; to
be sure the colonel thought so well of himself and his
wife, that no doubt he considered her the grandest lady
in the room ; and she who remembered him a road surveyor
at a guinea a day ! Well, indeed ! there was no measuring
the pride of these provincial upstarts ; and as for this
ARBTTRIUM POPULARIS AURAB
VIRGINIANS
Hh
THE LAST OP ‘ GOB SAVE THE KBSTG ’ 931
gentleman, my Lord Dunmore’s partiality for him had
evidently turned his head. I do not know about Mr.
Washin^on’s pride, I know that my good mother never
could be got to love him or anything that was his.
She was no better pleased with him for going to the ball,
than with his conduct three days afterwards, — ^when the
day of fast and humihation was appointed, and when
he attended the service which our new clergyman per-
formed. She invited Mr. Belman to dinner that day,
and sundry colonial authorities. The clergyman excused
himself. Madam Esmond tossed up her head, and said
he might do as he liked. She made a parade of a dinner ;
she lighted her house up at night, when all the rest
of the city was in darkness and gloom; she begged
Mr. Hardy, one of his excellency’s aides de camp, to sing
‘God save the king’, to which the people in the street outside
listened, thinking that it might be a part of some religious
service which madam was celebrating ; but then she called
for ‘ Britons, strike home ! ’ which the simple young gentle-
man just from Europe began to perform, when a great
yell arose in the street, and a large stone, flung from some
rebellious hand,* plumped into the punch-bowl before me,
and scattered it and its contents about our dining-room.
My mother went to the window nothing daunted. I can
see her rigid little figure now, as she stands vdth a tossed-
up head, outstretched frilled arms, and the twinkling
stars for a background, and sings in chorus, ‘ Britons,
strike home ! strike home ! * The crowd in front of the
palings shout and roar, ‘ Silence I for shame ! go back ! ’
but she will not go back, not she. ‘ Fling more stones,
if you dare ! ’ says the brave little lady ; and more might
have come, but some gentlemen issuing out of the ‘Raleigh^
Tavern ’ interpose with the crowd. ‘ You mustn’t insult
a lady,’’ says a voice I think I know. ‘ Huzza, colonel !
Hurrah, captain ! God bless your honour ! ’ say the
people in the street. And thus the enemies are pacified.
My mother protesting that the whole disturbance was
over, would have had Mr. Hardy sing another song, but
he gave a sickly grin, and said, ‘ he really did not like
to sing to such accompaniments,’ and the concert for
that evening was ended ; though I am bound to say
that some scoundrels returned at night, frightened my poor
wife almost out of wits, and broke every single window in
932
THE VIRGINIANS
the front of our tenement. " Britons, strike home ! ’ was
a little too much ; madam should have contented herself
with * God save the king’. Militia was drilled, bullets were
cast, supplies of ammunition got ready, cunning plans for
disappointing the royal ordinances devised and carried
out ; but, to be sure, ‘ God save the king ’ was the cry
everywhere, and in reply to my objections to the gentlemen-
patriots, ‘ Why, you are scheming for a separation ; you
are bringing down upon you the inevitable wrath of the
greatest power in the world ! ’ — ^the answer to me always
was, ‘ We mean no separation at all ; we yield to no men
in loyalty ; we glory in the name of Britons,’ and so forth,
and so forth. The powder barrels were heaped in the
cellar, the train was laid, but Mr. Pawkes was persistent
in his dutiful petitions to king and parliament and meant
no harm, not he I ’Tis true when I spoke of the power of
our country, I imagined she would exert it ; that she
would not expect to overcome three millions of fellow
Britons on their own soil with a few battalions, a half-
dozen generals from Bond Street, and a few thousand
bravos hired out of Germany. As if we wanted to insult
the thirteen colonies as well as to subdue, them, we must
set upon them these hordes of Hessians, and the murderers
out of the Indian wigwams. Was our great quarrel not
to be fought without tali auxilio and istis deferisoribus ?
Ah ! ’tis easy, now we are worsted, to look over the map
of the great empire wrested from us, and show how we
ought not to have lost it. Long Island ought to have
exterminated Washington’s army ; he ought never to have
come out of Valley Forge except as a prisoner. The South
was ours after the battle of Camden, but for the inconceiv-
able meddling of the commander-in-chief at New York, who
paralysed the exertions of the only capable British general
who appeared during the war, and sent him into that
miserable cul-de-sac at York Town, whence he could only
issue defeated and a prisoner. Oh for a week more ! a day
more, an hour more of darkness or light ! In reading
over our American campaigns from their unhappy com-
mencement to their inglorious end, now that we are able
to see the enemy’s movements and condition ^ as well as
our own, I fancy we can see how an advance, a march,
might have put enemies into our power who had no means
to withstand it, and changed the entire issue of the struggle.
THE LAST OF ‘ GOB SAVE THE KING ’
933
But it was ordained by Heaven, and for the good, as we
can now have no doubt, of both empires, that the great
Western Republic shoidd separate from us : and the
gallant soldiers who fought on her side, their indomit-
able^ chief above all, had the glory of facing and overcoming,
not only veterans amply provided and inured to war,
but wretchedness, cold, hunger, dissensions, treason within
their own camp, where all must have gone to rack, but
for the pure unquenchable flame of patriotism that was for
ever burning in the bosom of the heroic leader. What
a constancy, what a magnanimity, what a surprising
persistence against fortune ! Washin^on before the enemy
was no better nor braver than hundreds that fought with
him or against him (who has not heard the repeated sneers
against ‘ Fabius ’ in which his factious captains were
accustomed to indulge ?), but Washington the Chief of
a nation in arms, doing battle with distracted parties ;
calm in the midst of conspiracy ; serene against the open
foe before him and the darker enemies at his back ;
Washington inspiring order and spirit into troops hungry
and in rags ; stung by ingratitude, but betraying no anger,
and ever ready to forgive ; . in defeat invincible, magnani-
mous in conquest, and never so sublime as on that day when
he laid down his victorious sword and sought his noble retire-
ment : — ^here indeed is a character to admire and revere ; a
life without a stain, a fame without a flaw. Quando invenies
parem? In that more extensive work, which I have
planned and partly written on the subject of this great
war, I hope I have done justice to the character of its
greatest leader.* And this from the sheer force of respect
which his eminent virtues extorted. With the young Mr.
Washington of my own early days I had not the honour
to enjoy much sympathy : though my brother, whose
character is much more frank and affectionate than mine,
* And I trust that in the opinions I have recorded regarding him,
I have shown that I also can be just and magnanimous towards
those who view me personally with no favour. For my brother Hal
being at Mount Vernon, and always eager to bring me and his
beloved chief on good terms, showed his excellency some of the
early sheets of my History. General Washington (who read but
few books, and had not the slightest pretensions to literary taste)
remarked, ‘ If you will have my opinion, my dear general, I think
Sir George’s projected work, from the specimen I have of it, is
certain to offend both parties.’ — G. E. W.
934
THE VIEGINIANS
was always his fast friend in early times, when they were
equals, as in latter days when the general, as I do own and
think, was all mankind’s superior.
I have mentioned that contrariety in my disposition,
and, perhaps, in my brother’s, which somehow placed
us on wrong sides in the quarrel which ensued, and which
from this time forth raged for five years, until the mother
country was fain to acknowledge her defeat. Harry
should have been the Tory, and I the Whig. Theoretically
my opinions were very much more liberal than those
of my brother, who, especially after his marriage, became
what our Indian nabobs call a Bahadoor — a person cere-
monious, stately, and exacting respect. When my Lord
Dunmore, for instance, talked about liberating the negroes,
so as to induce them to join the king’s standard, Hal was
for hanging the governor and the Black Guards (as he
called them) whom his excellency had crimped. ' If you
gentlemen are fighting for freedom,’ says I, ‘ sure the negroes
may fight, too.’ On which Harry roars out, shaking his
fist, ‘ Infernal villains, if I meet any of ’em, they shall
^e by this hand ! ’ And my mother agreed that this
idea of a negro insurrection was the most abominable
and parricidal notion which had ever sprung up in her
unhappy country. She at least was more consistent than
brother Hal. She would have black and white obedient
to the powers that be : whereas Hal only could admit
that freedom was the right of the latter colour.
As a proof of her argument, Madam Esmond and Harry
too would point to an instance in our own family in the
person of Mr. Gumbo. Having got his freedom from me,
as a reward for his admirable love and fidelity to me when
times were hard, Gumbo, on his return to Virginia, was
scarce a welcome guest in his old quarters, amongst my
mother’s servants. He was free, and they were not : he
was, as it were, a centre of insurrection. He gave himself
no small airs of protection and consequence amongst them ;
bragging of his friends in Europe (‘ at home,’ as he called
it), and his doings there ; and for a while bringing the
household round about him to listen to him and admire
him, like the monkey who had seen the world. Now,
Sady, Hal’s boy, who went to America of his own desire,
was not free. Hence jealousies between him and Mr.
Gum ; and battles, in wMch they both practised the noble
THE LAST OF ^ GOD SAVE THE KING ’ 935
art of boxing and butting, which they had learned at
Marybone Gardens and Hockley-iii-the-Hole. Nor was
Sady the only jealous person : almost all my mother’s
servants hated Signor 'Gumbo for the airs which he gave
himself ; and I am sorry to say, that our faithful Molly,
his wife, was as jealous as his old fellow-servants. The
blacks could not pardon her for having demeaned herself
so far as to marry one of their kind. She met with no
respect, could exercise no authority, came to her mistress
with ceaseless complaints of the idleness, knavery, lies,
stealing of the black people ; and finally with a story of
jealousy against a certain Dinah, or Diana, who I heartily
trust was as innocent as her namesake, the moonlight
visitant of Endymion. Now, on the article of morality,
Madam Esmond was a very Draconess ; and a person
accused was a person guilty. She made charges against
Mr. Gumbo to which he replied with asperity. Forgetting
that he was a free gentleman, my mother now ordered
Gumbo to be whipped, on which Molly fiew at her ladyship,
all her wrath at her husband’s infidelity vanishing at the
idea of the indignity put upon him ; there was a rebellion
in our house at Castlewood. A quarrel took place between
me and my mother, as I took my man’s side. Hal and
Fanny sided with her, on the contrary ; and in so far
the difference did good, as it brought about some little
intimacy between madam and her younger children.
This little difference was speedily healed ; but it was clear
that the Standard of Insurrection must be removed out
of our house ; and we determined that Mr. Gumbo and his
lady should return to Europe.
My wife and I would willingly have gone with them,
God wot, for our boy sickened and lost his strength, and
caught the fever in our swampy country ; but at this time
she was expecting to lie in (of our son Henry), and she knew,
too, that I had promised to stay in Virginia. It was agreed
that we should send the two back; but when I offered
Theo to go, she said her place was with her husband ; —
her father and Hetty at home would take care of our
children ; and she scarce would allow me to see a tear
in her eyes whilst she was making her preparations for
the departure of her httle ones. Dost thou remember the
time, madam, and the silence round the work-tables, as
the piles of little shirts are made ready for the voyage ?
936
THE VIRGINIANS
and the stealthy visits to the children's chambers whilst
they are asleep and yet with you ? and the terrible time
of parting, as our barge with the servants and children
rows to the ship, and you stand on the shore ? Had
the Prince of Wales been going on that voyage, he could
not have been better provided. Where, sirrah, is the
Tompion watch your grandmother gave you ? and how
did you survive the boxes of cakes which the good lady
stowed away in your cabin ?
The ship which took out my poor Theo’s children, returned
with the Reverend Mr. Hagan and my lady Maria on board,
who meekly chose to resign her rank, and was known
in the colony (which was not to be a colony very long)
only as Mrs. Hagan. At the time when I was in favour
with my Lord Dunmore, a living falling vacant in West-
moreland county, he gave it to our kinsman, who arrived
in Virginia time enough to christen our boy Henry, and to
preach some sermons on the then gloomy state of affairs,
which Madam Esmond pronounced to be prodigious fine.
I think my Lady Maria won madam’s heart by insisting
on going out of the room after her. ‘ My father, your
brother, was an earl, ’tis true,’ says she, ‘ but you know
your ladyship is a marquis’s daughter, and I never can
think of taking precedence of you ! ’ So fond did madam
become of her niece, that she even allowed Hagan to
read plays — ^my own humble compositions amongst others —
and was fairly forced to own that there was merit in the
tragedy of Pocahontas, which our parson delivered with
uncommon energy and fire.
Hal and his wife came but rarely to Castlewood and
Richmond when the chaplain and his lady were with us.
Fanny was very curt and rude with Maria, used to giggle
and laugh strangely in her company, and repeatedly
remind her of her age, to our mother’s astonishment,
who would often ask, was there any cause of quarrel
between her niece and her daughter-in-law ? I kept
my own counsel on these occasions, and was often not
a little touched by the meekness with which the elder
lady bore her persecutions. Fanny loved to torture
her in her husband’s presence (who, poor fellow, was also
in a happy ignorance about his wife’s early history), and
the other bore her agony, wincing as little as might be.
I sometimes would remonstrate with Madam Harry, and
THE LAST OE 'GOD SAVE THE KING ’
937
ask her was she a red Indian, that she tortured her victims
so ? ‘ Have not I had torture enough in my time ? ’
says the young lady, and looked as though she was deter-
mined to pay hack the injuries inflicted on her.
‘ Nay,’ says I, ‘ you were bred in our wigwam, and
I don’t remember anything but kindness ! ’
‘ Kdndness ! ’ cries she. ‘ No slave was ever treated
as I was. The blows which wound most, often are those
which never are aimed. The people who hate us are
not those we have injured.’
I thought of little Fanny in our early days, silent, smiling,
willing to run and do all our biddings for us, and I grieved
for my poor brother, who had taken this sly creature
into his bosom.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII
‘yaistkeb doodue’ comes to town
B of the uses to
which we put Amer-
ica in the days of
our British domin-
ion was to make it
a refuge for our
sinners. Besides
convicts and as-
signed servants
whom we trans-
ported to our
colonies, we dis-
charged on their
shores scapegraces
and younger sons,
for whom dissipa-
tion, despair, and
bailiffs made the old
country uninhabit-
able. And as Mr.
Cook, in his voy-
ages, made his
newly-discovered islanders presents of English animals
H h 3
93S
THE VIRGmiANS
(and other specimens of European civilization), we used
to take care to send samples of our black shee'p over
to the colonies, there to browse as best they might, and
propagate their precious breed. I myself was perhaps
a little guilty in this matter, in busying myself to find
a living in America for the worthy Hagan, husband of
my kinswoman, — ^at least was guilty in so far as this,
that as we could get him no employment in England,
we were glad to ship him to Virginia, and give him a colonial
pulpit-cushion to thump. He demeaned himself there
as a brave honest gentleman, to be sure ; he did his duty
thoroughly by his congregation, and his king too ; and
in so far &d credit to my small patronage. Madam Theo
used to urge this when I confided to her my scruples of
conscience on this subject, and show, as her custom was and
is, that my conduct in this, as in all other matters, was
dictated by the highest principles of morahty and honour.
But would I have given Hagan our living at home, and
selected him and his wife to minister to our parish ? I fear
not. I never had a doubt of our cousin’s sincere repent-
ance ; but I think I was secretly glad when she went to work
it out in the wilderness. And I say this, acknowledging
my pride and my error. Twice, when I wanted them
most, this kind Maria aided me with her sympathy and
friendship. She bore her own distresses courageously,
and soothed those of others with admirable affection and
devotion. And yet I, and some of mine (not Theo), would
look down upon her. Oh, for shame, for shame on our
pride !
My poor Lady Maria was not the only one of our family
who was to be sent out of the way to American wildernesses.
Having borrowed, stolen, cheated at home, until he could
cheat, borrow, and steal no more, the Honourable William
Esmond, Esquire, was accommodated with a place at
New York; and his noble brother and royal master
heartily desired that they might see him no more. When
the troubles began, we heard of the fellow and his doings
in his new habitation. Lies and mischief were his avant-
courriers wherever he travelled. My Lord Dunmore informed
me that Mr. Will declared pubhcly, that our estate of
Castlewood was only ours during his brother’s pleasure ;
that his father, out of consideration for Madam Esmond,
his lordship^s half-sister, had given her the place for life.
‘YANKEE DOODLE’ COMES TO TOWN
939
and that he, William, was in negotiation with his brother,
the present Lord Castlewood, for the purchase of the
reversion of the estate ! We had the deed of gift in our
strong-room at Castlewood, and it was furthermore registered
in due form at WilHamsburg ; so that we were easy on that
score. But the intention was everything ; and Hal and
I promised, as soon as ever we met Mr. William, to get
from him a confirmation of this pretty story. What Madam
Esmond’s feelings and expressions were when she heard
it, I need scarcely here particularize. ‘ What ! my father,
the Marquis of Esmond, was a liar, and I am a cheat,
am I ? ’ cries my mother. ‘ He will take my son’s property
at my death, will he ? ’ And she was for writing, not only
to Lord Castlewood in England, but to his Majesty himself
at St. James’s, and was only prevented by my assurances
that Mr. Will’s lies were notorious amongst all his acquaint-
ance,' and that we could not expect, in our own case, that he
should be so inconsistent as to teU the truth. We heard
of him presently as one of the loudest amongst the Loyalists
in New York, as captain, and presently major of a corps
of volunteers who were sending their addresses to the
well-^sposed in all the other colonies, and announcing
their perfect readiness to die for the mother country.
We could not lie in a house without a whole window,
and closing the shutters of that unlucky mansion we had
hired at Williamsburg, Madam Esmond left our little
capital, and my family returned to Richmond, which
also was deserted by the members of the (dissolved) assembly.
Captain Hal and his wife returned pretty early to their
plantation ; and I, not a little annoyed at the course
which events were taking, divided my time pretty much
between my own family and that of our governor, who
professed himself very eager to have my advice and company.
There were the strongest political differences, but as yet
no actual personal quarrel. Even after the dissolution
of our House of Assembly (the members of which adjourned
to a tavern, and there held that famous meeting where,
I believe, the idea of a congress of all the colonies was
first proposed), the gentlemen who were strongest in
opposition remained good friends with his excellency,
partook of his hospitality, and joined him in excursions
of pleasure. The session over, the gentry went home
and had meetings in their respective counties ; and the
940
THE VIRGINIANS
assemblies in most of the other provinces having been
also abruptly dissolved, it was agreed everywhere that
a general congress should be held. Philadelphia, as the
largest and most important city on our continent, was
selected as the place of meeting; and those celebrated
conferences began, which were but the angry preface
of war. We were still at ‘ God save the king ’ ; we were
still presenting our humble petitions to the throne ; but
when I went to visit my brother Harry at Fanny’s Mount
(his new plantation lay not far from ours, but with Rappa-
hannock between us, and towards Mattaponey River),
he rode out on business one morning, and I in the afternoon
happened to ride too, and was told by one of the grooms
that master was gone towards Willis’s Ordinary ; in
which direction, thinking no harm, I followed. And upon
a clear place not far from Willis’s, as I advance out of
the wood, I come on Captain Hal on horseback, with
three- or four-and-thirty countrymen round about him,
armed with every sort of weapon, pike, scythe, fowling-
piece, and musket; and the captain, with two or three
likely young fellows as officers under him, was putting
the men tlnough their exercise. As I rode up a queer
expression comes over Hal’s face. ‘ Present arms ! ’
says he (and the army tries to perform the salute as well
as they could), ‘ Captain Cade, this is my brother. Sir
George Warrington.’
‘ As a relation of yours, colonel,^ says the individual
addressed as captain, ‘ the gentleman is welcome,’ and he
holds out a hand accordingly.
‘And — and a true friend to Virginia,’ says' Hal, with
a reddening face.
‘ Yes, please God ! gentlemen,’ say I, on which the regi-
ment gives a hearty huzzay for the colonel and his brother.
The driU over, the officers, and the men too, were for
adjourning to Willis’s and taking some refreshment, but
Colonel Hal said he could not drink with them that after-
noon, and we trotted homewards together.
‘ So, Hal, the cat’s out of the bag ! ’ I said.
He gave me a hard look. ‘ I guess there’s wilder cats
in it. It must come to this, George. I say, you mustn’t
tell madam,’ he adds.
‘ Good God 1 ’ I cried, ‘ do you mean that, with fellows
such as those I saw yonder, you and your friends are going
‘YANKEE DOODLE’ COMES TO TOWN
943
to make fight against the greatest nation and the best army
in the world ? ’
' I guess we shall get an awful whipping,’ says Hal,
‘ and that’s the fact. But then, George,’ he added, with
his sweet kind smile, ‘ we are young, and a whipping or
two may do us good. Won’t it do us good, Dolly, you
old slut ? ’ and he gives a playful touch with his whip to
an old dog of all trades, that was running by him.
I did not try to urge upon him (I had done so in vain
many times previously) our British side of the question,
the side which appears to me to be the best. He was accus-
tomed to put off my reasons by saying, ‘ All mighty well,
brother, you speak as an Englishman, and have cast
in your lot with your country, as I have with mine.’ To
this argument I own there is no answer, and all that remains
for the disputants is to fight the matter out, when the
strongest is in the right. Which had the right in the
wars of the last century ? The king or the parliament ?
The side that wa^ uppermost was the right, and on the
whole much more humane in their victory than the Cavaliers
would have been had they won. Nay, suppose we Tories
had won the day in America ; how frightful and bloody
that triumph would have been ! What ropes and scaffolds
one imagines, what noble heads laid low ! A strange
feeling this, I own ; I was on the Loyalist side, and yet
w^anted the Whigs to win. My brother Hal, on the other
hand, who distinguished himself greatly with his regiment,
never allowed a word of disrespect against the enemy
whom he opposed. ‘The ofiSicers of the British army,’
he used to say, ‘ are gentlemen : at least, I have not heard
that they are very much changed since my time. There
may be scoundrels and ruffians amongst the enemy’s
troops ; I dare say we could find some such amongst
our own. Our business is to beat his Majesty’s forces,
not call them names ; — any rascal can do that.’ And from
a name which Mr. Lee gave my brother, and many of
his rough horsemen did not understand, Harry was often
called ‘ Chevalier Baird ’ in the Continental army. He
was a knight, indeed, without fear and without re-
proach.
As for the argument, ‘ What could such people as those
you were drilling do against the British army ? ’ Hal
had a confident answer.
944
THE VIRGINIANS
‘ They can beat them,’ says he, * Mr. George, that’s what
they can do.’
‘ Great Heavens ! ’ I cry, ‘ do you mean with your com-
pany of Wolfe’s you would hesitate to attack five hundred
such ? ’
‘ With my company of the 67th, I would go anywhere.
And, agreed with you, that at this present moment I know
more of soldiering than they ; — ^but place me on that open
ground where you found us, armed as you please, and
half a dozen of my friends, with rifles, in the woods round
about me ; which would get the better ? You know
best, Mr. Braddock’s aide de camp ! ’
There was no arguing with such a determination as this.
^ Thou knowest my way of thinking, Hal,’ I said ; ‘ and
having surprised you at your work, I must tell my lord
what I have seen.’
‘TeU him, of course. You have seen our county
militia exercising. You wiU see as much in every colony
from here to the Saint Lawrence or Georgia. As I am
an old soldier, they have elected me colonel. What
more natural ? Come, brother, let us trot on ; dinner
will be ready, and Mrs, Fan does not like me to keep it
waiting.’ And so we made for his house, which was open
like all the houses of our Virginian gentlemen, and where
not only every friend and neighbour, but every stranger
and traveller, was sure to find a welcome.
‘ So, Mrs. Fan,’ I said, ‘ I have found out what game
my brother has been playing.’
" I trust the colonel will have plenty of sport ere long,’
says she, with a toss of her head.
My wife thought Harry had been hunting, and I did
not care to undeceive her, though what I had seen and he
had told me, made me naturally very anxious.
4
945
CHAPTER LXXXIX
A COLONEL WITHOUT A EEGIMENT
HEN my visit to my brother
was concluded, and my wife
and young child had re-
turned to our maternal
house at Richmond, I made
it my business to go over to
our governor, then at his
country house, near Wil-
liamsburg, and confer with
him regarding these open
preparations for war, which
were being made not only
in our own province, but in
every one of the colonies
as far as we could learn.
Gentlemen, with whose
names history has since
made all the world familiar,
were appointed from Virginia as delegates to the General
Congress about to be held in Philadelphia. In Massa-
chusetts the people and the royal troops were facing each
other almost in open hostility ; in Maryland and Penn-
sylvania we flattered ourselves that a much more loyal
spirit was prevalent : in the Carolinas and Georgia the
mother country could reckon upon stanch adherents,
and a great majority of the inhabitants : and it never
was to be supposed that our own Virginia would forgo its
ancient loyalty. We had but few troops in the province,
but its gentry were proud of their descent from the Cavaliers
of the old times : and round about our governor were
swarms of loud and confldent Loyalists who were only
eager for the moment when they might draw the sword,
and scatter the rascally rebels before them. Of course,
in these meetings I was forced to hear many a hard word
against my poor Harry. His wife, all agreed (and not with-
out good reason, perhaps), had led him to adopt these
extreme anti-British opinions which he had of late declared;
948
THE VIRGINIANS
the same — ^leastways handsome and proper, and I didn’t
expect it of you : and you don’t take after your mother
in this, Sir George, that you don’t, nohow. Give my love
to sister Theo 1 ’ And she offers me a cheek to kiss, ere
I ride away from her door. With such a woman as Fanny
to guide him, how could I hope to make a convert of my
brother ?
Having met with this poor success in my enterprise,
I rode back to our governor, with whom I agreed that it
was time to arm in earnest, and prepare ourselves against
the shock that certainly was at hand. He and his whole
Court of Officials were not a little agitated and excited :
needlessly savage I thought, in their abuse of the wicked
"V^igs, and loud in their shouts of Old England for ever ;
but they were all eager for the day when the contending
parties could meet hand to hand, and they could have an
opportunity of riding those wicked Whigs down. And
I left my lord, having received the thanks of his excellency
in council, and engaged to do my best endeavours to raise
a body of men in defence of the Crown. Hence the corps,
called afterwards the Westmoreland Defenders, had its
rise, of which I had the honour to be appointed colonel,
and which I was to command when it appeared in the
field. And that fortunate event must straightway take
place, so soon as the county knew that a gentleman of my
station and name would take the command of the force.
The announcement was duly made in the Government
Gazette, and we filled in our officers readily enough ; but
the recruits, it must be owned, were slow to come in,
and quick to disappear. Nevertheless, friend Hagan
eagerly came forward to offer himself as chaplain. Madam
Esmond gave us our colours, and progressed about the
country engaging volunteers ; but the most eager recruiter
of aU was my good old tutor, little Mr. Dempster, who had
been out as a boy on the Jacobite side in Scotland, and
who went especially into the Carolinas, among the children
of his banished old comrades, who had worn the white
cockade of Prince Charles, and who most of all showed
themselves in this contest still loyal to the Crown.
Hal’s expedition in search of horses led him not only
so far as the Blue Mountains in our colony, but thence
on a long journey to Annapolis and Baltimore ; and from
Baltimore to Philadelphia, to be sure ; where a second
A COLONEL WITHOUT A REGIMENT
949
General Congress was now sitting, attended by our Virginian
gentlemen of the last year. Meanwhile, all the almanacs
tell what had happened. Lexington had happened, and
the first shots were fired in the war which was to end
in the independence of my native country. We still pro-
tested of our loyalty to his Majesty ; but we stated our
determination to die or be free ; and some twenty thousand
of our loyal petitioners assembled round about Boston
with arms in their hands and cannon, to which they had
helped themselves out of the government stores. Mr.
Arnold had begun that career which was to end so brilliantly,
by the daring and burglarious capture of two forts, of
which he forced the doors. Three generals from Bond
Street, with a large reinforcement, were on their way to
help Mr. Gage out of his ugly position at Boston. Presently
the armies were actually engaged ; and our British generals
commenced their career of conquest and pacification in
the colonies by the glorious blunder of Breed’s HiU. Here
they fortified themselves, feeling themselves not strong
enough for the moment to win any more glorious victories
over the rebels : and the two armies lay watching each
other whilst Congress was deliberating at Philadelphia who
should command the forces of the confederated colonies.
We all know on whom the most fortunate choice of the
nation fell. Of the Virginian regiments which marched
to join the new general-in-chief, one was commanded by
Henry Esmond Warrington, Esq., late a captain in
his Majesty’s service ; and by his side rode his little wife,
of whose bravery we often subsequently heard. I was
glad, for one, that she had quitted Virginia ; for, had she
remained after her husband’s departure, our mother
would infallibly have gone over to give her battle ; and
I was thankful, at least, that that incident of civil war
was spared to our family and history.
The rush of our farmers and country-folk was almost
all directed towards the new northern army ; and our
people were not a little flattered at the selection of a Vir-
ginian gentleman for the principal command. With a
thrill of wrath and fury the provinces heard of the blood
drawn at Lexington ; and men yelled denunciations
against the cruelty and wantonness of the bloody British
invader. The invader was but doing his duty, and was
met and resisted by men in arms, who wished to prevent
950
THE VIRGINIANS
him from helping himself to his own ; but people do not
stay to weigh their words when they mean to be angry ;
the colonists had taken their side ; and with what I own
to be a natural spirit and ardour, were determined to
have a trial of strength with the braggart domineering
mother country. Breed’s Hill became a mountain, as it
were, which all men of the American Continent might
behold, with Liberty, Victory, Glory, on its flaming summit.
These dreaded troops could be withstood, then, by farmers
and ploughmen. These famous officers could be out-
generalled by doctors, lawyers, and civilians ! Granted
that Britons could conquer all the world ; — ^here were
their children who could match and. conquer Britons !
Indeed, I don’t know which of the two deserves the palm,
either for bravery or vainglory. We are in the habit
of laughing at our French neighbours for boasting, gas-
conadmg and so forth ; but for a steady self-esteem, and
indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness,
magnanimity ; — ^who can compare with Britons, except
their children across the Atlantic ?
The people round about us took the people’s side for
the most part in the struggle, and, truth to say. Sir George
Warrington found his regiment of Westmoreland Defenders
but very thinly manned at the commencement, and wofuUy
diminished in numbers presently, not only after the news of
battle from the north, but in consequence of the behaviour of
my lord our governor, whose conduct enraged no one more
than his own immediate partisans, and the loyal adher-
ents of the Crown throughout the colony. That he would
plant the king’s standard, and summon all loyal gentlemen
to rally round it, had been a measure agreed in countless
meetings, and applauded over thousands of bumpers.
I have a pretty good memory, and could mention the name
of many a gentleman, now a smug officer of the United
States Government, whom I have heard hiccup out a prayer
that he might be allowed to perish under the folds of his
country’s flag ; or roar a challenge to the bloody traitors
absent with the rebel army. But let bygones be bygones.
This, however, is matter of public history, that his lordship,
our governor, a peer of Scotland, the Sovereign’s representa-
tive in his Old Dominion, who so loudly invited all the
lieges to join the king’s standard, was the first to put it
in his pocket, and fly to his ships out of reach of danger.
A COLOlSrEL WITHOUT A REGIMENT 951
He would not leave them, save as a pirate at midnight
to burn and destroy. Meanwhile, we loyal gentry remained
on shore, committed to our cause, and only subject to greater
danger in consequence of the weakness and cruelty of him
who ought to have been our leader. It was the beginning
of June, our orchards and gardens were all blooming
with plenty and summer ; a week before I had been over
at Williamsburg, exchanging compliments with his excel-
lency, devising plans for future movements by which
we should be able to make good head against rebellion,
shaking hands heartily at parting, and vincere aut mori
the very last words upon aU our lips. Our little family
was gathered at Richmond, talking over, as we did daily,
the prospect of affairs in the north, the quarrels between
our own assembly and his excellency, by whom they had
been afresh convened, when our ghostly Hagan rushes
into our parlour, and asks, ‘Have we heard the news of
the governor ? ’ ‘
‘ Has he dissolved the assembly again, and put that
scoundrel Patrick Henry in irons ? ’ asks Madam Esmond.
‘ No such thing ! His lordship with his lady and
family have left their palace privately at night. They
are on board a man-of-war off York, whence my lord
has sent a dispatch to the assembly, begging them to
continue their sitting, and announcing that he himself
had only quitted his Government House out of fear of the
fury of the people.’
What was to become of the sheep, now the shepherd
had run away ? No entreaties could be more pathetic
than those of the gentlemen of the House of Assenably,
who guaranteed their governor security if he would but
land, and implored him to appear amongst them, if but
to pass bills and transact the necessary business. No :
the man-of-war was his seat of government, and my lord
desired his House of Commons to wait upon him there.
This was erecting the king’s standard with a vengeance.
Our governor had left us ; our assembly perforce ruled
in his stead ; a rabble of people followed the fugitive
viceroy on board his ships. A mob of negroes deserted
out of the plantations to join this other deserter. He
and his black allies landed here and there in darkness,
and emulated the most lawless of our opponents in their
alacrity at seizing and burning. He not only invited
952
THE VIRGINIANS
runaway negroes, but lie sent an ambassador to Indians
with entreaties to join his standard. When he came
on shore it was to burn and destroy : when the people
resisted, as at Norfolk and Hampton, he retreated and
betook himself to his ships again.
Even my mother, after that miserable flight of our
chief, was scared at the aspect of affairs, and doubted
of the speedy putting down of the rebellion. The arming
of the negroes was, in her opinion, the most cowardly
blow of aU. The loyal gentry were ruined, and robbed,
many of them, of their only property. A score of our
worst hands deserted from Richmond and Castlewood,
and fled to our courageous governor’s fleet ; not all of them,
though some of them, were slain, and a couple hung by
the enemy for plunder and robbery perpetrated whilst
with his lordship’s precious army. Because her property
was wantonly injured, and his Majesty’s chief officer an
imbecile, would Madam Esmond desert the cause of Royalty
and Honour ? My good mother was never so prodigiously
dignified, and loudly and enthusiastically loyal, as after
she heard of our governor’s lamentable defection. The
people round about her, though most of them of quite
a different way of thinking, listened to her speeches without
unkindness. Her oddities were known far and wide
through our province ; where, I am afraid, many of the
wags amongst our young men were accustomed to smoke
her, as the phrase then was, and draw out her stories
about the marquis her father, about the splendour of her
family, and so forth. But, along with her oddities, her
charities and kindness were remembered, and many a rebel,
as she called them, had a sneaking regard for the pompous
little Tory lady.
As for the Colonel of the Westmoreland Defenders,
though that gentleman’s command dwindled utterly away
after the outrageous conduct of his chief, yet I escaped
from some ve^ serious danger which might have befallen
me and mine in consequence of some disputes which I was
known to have had with my Lord Dunmore. Going on
board his ship after he had burnt the stores at Hampton,
and issued the proclamation calling the negroes to his
standard, I made so free as to remonstrate with him in
regard to both measures ; I implored him to return to
Williamsburg, where hundreds of us, thousands I hoped.
A COLONEL WITHOUT A REGIMENT
953
would be ready to defend him to the last extremity ; and
in my remonstrance used terms so free, or rather, as I
suspect, indicated my contempt for his conduct so clearly
by my behaviour, that his lordship flew into a rage, said
I was a rebel, like all the rest of them, and ordered
me under arrest there on board his own ship. In my
quality of militia officer (since the breaking out of the
troubles I commonly used a red coat, to show that I wore
the king’s colour) I begged for a court martial immediately ;
and turning round to two officers who had been present
during our altercation, desired them to remember all that
had passed between his lordship and me. These gentle-
men were no doubt of my way of thinking as to the chief’s
behaviour, and our interview ended in my going ashore
unaccompanied by a guard. The story got wind amongst
the Whig gentry, and was improved in the telling. I had
spoken out my mind manfully to the governor ; no Whig
could have uttered sentiments more liberal. When riots
took place in Richmond, and many of the loyalists remaining
there were in peril of life and betook themselves to the
ships, my mother’s property and house were never en-
dangered, nor her family insulted. We were still at the
stage when a reconciliation was fondly thought possible.
‘ Ah 1 if all the Tories were like you,’ a distinguished
Whig has said to me, ‘ we and the people at home should
soon come together again.’ This of course was before
the famous Fourth of July, and that Declaration which
rendered reconcilement impossible. Afterwards, when
parties grew more rancorous, motives much less creditable
were assigned for my conduct, and it was said I chose
to be a Liberal Tory because I was a cunnmg fox, and
wished to keep my estate whatever -way things went. And
this I am bound to say is the opinion regarding my humble
self which has obtained in very high quarters at home,
where a profound regard for my own interest has been
supposed not uncommonly to have occasioned my conduct
during the late unhappy troubles.
There were two or three persons in the world (for I had
not told my mother how I was resolved to cede to my
brother all my life interest in our American property) who
knew that I had no mercenary motives in regard to the
conduct I pursued. It was not worth while to undeceive
others ; what were life worth, if a man were forced to put
954
THE VIRGINIANS
himself d la piste of all the calumnies uttered against him ?
And I do not quite know to this present day, how it
happened that my mother, that notorious loyalist, was
left for several years quite undisturbed in her house at
Castlewood, a stray troop or company of Continentals
being occasionally quartered upon her. I do not know for
certain, I say, how this piece of good fortune happened,
though I can give a pretty shrewd guess as to the cause
of it. Madam Fanny, after a campaign before Boston,
came back to Fanny’s Mount, leaving her colonel. My
modest Hal, until the conclusion of the war, would accept
no higher rank, believing that in command of a regiment
he could be more useful than in charge of a division.
Madam Fanny, I say, came back, and it was remarkable
after her return how her old asperity towards my mother
seemed to be removed, and what an affection she showed
for her and all the property. She was great friends with
the governor and some of the most influential gentlemen
of the new Assembly : — ^Madam Esmond was harness, and
for her son’s sake, who was bravely battling for his country,
her errors should be lightly visited : — Ibiow not how it
was, but for years she remained unharmed, except in
respect of heavy government requisitions, which of course
she had to pay, and it was not until the red-coats appeared
about our house, that much serious evil came to it.
955
CHAPTER XC
IN WHICH WE BOTH EIGHT AND ETJN AWAY
HAT was the use of a
colonel without a regi-
ment ? The governor
and council who had
made such a parade of
thanks in endowing me
with mine, were away
out of sight, skulking
on board ships, with
an occasional piracy
and arson on shore.
My Lord Dunmore’s
black allies frightened
away those of his own
blood ; and besides
these negroes whom he
had summoned round
him in arms, we heard
that he had sent an envoy among the Indians of the south,
and that they were to come down in numbers and toma-
hawk our people into good behaviour. ‘ And these are to
be our allies ! ’ I say to my mother, exchanging ominous
looks with her, and remembering, with a ghastly distinct-
ness, that savage whose face glared over mine, and whose
knife was at my throat when Florae struck him down on
Braddock’s field. We put our house of Castlewood into
as good a state of defence as we could devise ; but, in
truth, it was more of the red men- and the blacks than of
the rebels we were afraid. I never saw my mother lose
courage but once, and then when she was recounting to
us the particulars of our father’s death in a foray of Indians
more than forty years ago. Seeing some figures one night
moving in front of our house, nothing could persuade the
good lady but that they were savages, and she sank on
her knees crying out, ‘ The Lord have mercy upon us !
The Indians — the Indians ! ’
My lord’s negro allies vanished on board his ships, or
956
THE VIBGINIAMS
where they could find pay and plunder ; but the painted
heroes from the south never made their appearance, though
I own to have looked at my mother’s grey head, my wife’s
brown hair, and our little one’s golden ringlets, with a
horrible pang of doubt lest these should fall the victims
of ruffian war. And it was we who fought with such
weapons, and enlisted these allies I But that I dare not
(so to speak) be setting myself up as interpreter of Provi-
dence, and pointing out the special finger of Heaven (as
many people are wont to do), I would say our employment
of these Indians, and of the German mercenaries, brought
their own retribution with them in this war. In the field,
where the mercenaries were attacked by the Provincials,
they yielded, and it was triumphing over them that so
raised the spirit of the Continental army ; and the murder
of one woman (Miss McCrea) by a half-dozen drunken
Indians, did more harm to the royal cause than the loss
of a battle or the destruction of regiments.
Now, the Indian panic over, Madam Esmond’s courage
returned : and she began to be seriously and not unjustly
uneasy, at the danger which I ran myself, and which
I brought upon others, by remaining in Virginia.
‘ What harm can they do me,’ says she, ' a poor woman ?
If I have one son a colonel without a regiment, I have
another with a couple of hundred Continentals behind him
in Mr. Washington’s camp. If the Royalists come, they
will let me off for your sake ; if the rebels appear, I shall
have Harry’s passport. I don’t wish, sir, I don’t like that
your delicate wife, and this dear httle baby should be here,
and only increase the risk of all of us ! We must have
them away to Boston or New York. Don’t talk about
defending me ! Who will think of hurting a poor, harmless
old woman ? If the rebels come, I shall shelter behind
Mrs. Eanny’s petticoats, and shall be much safer without
you in the house than in it.’ This she said in part, perhaps,
because ’twas reasonable ; more so because she would have
me and my family out of the danger ; and danger or not,
for her part she was determined to remain in the land
where her father was buried, and she was born. She was
living backwards, so to speak. She had seen the new gene-
ration, and blessed them, and bade them farewell. She
belonged to the past, and old days and memories.
While we were debating about the Boston scheme, comes
WE BOTH EIGHT AND BUN AWAY
957
tlie news that the British have evacuated that luckless city
altogether, never having ventured to attack Mr. Washing-
ton in his camp at Cambridge (though he lay there for
many months without powder at our mercy) ; but waiting
until he procured ammunition, and seized and fortified
Dorchester heights, which commanded the town, out of
which the whole British army and colony was obliged to
beat a retreat. That the king’s troops won the battle at
Bunker’s Hill, there is no more doubt than that they beat
the French at Blenheim ; but through the war their chiefs
seem constantly to have been afraid of assaulting entrenched
Continentals afterwards ; else why, from July to March,
hesitate to strike an almost defenceless enemy ? Why the
hesitation at Long Island, when the Continental army was
in our hand ? Why that astonishing timorousness of Howe
before Valley Forge ; where the relics of a force starving,
sickening, and in rags, could scarcely man the lines, which
they held before a great, victorious, and perfectly appointed
army ?
As the hopes and fears of the contending parties rose
and fell, it was curious to mark the altered tone of the
partisans of either. When the news came to us in the
country of the evacuation of Boston, every little Whig in
the neighbourhood made his bow to madam, and advised
her to a speedy submission. She did not carry her loyalty
quite so openly as heretofore, and flaunt her flag in the
faces of the public, but she never swerved. Every night
and morning in private poor Hagan prayed for the Eoyal
Family in our own household, and on Sundays any neigh-
bours were welcome to attend the service, where my mother
acted as a very emphatic clerk, and the prayer for the
High Court of Parliament under our most religious and
gracious king was very stoutly delivered. The brave Hagan
was a parson without a living, as I was a militia colonel
without a regiment. Hagan had continued to pray stoutly
for King George in Williamsburg, long after his excellency
our governor had run away : but on coming to church
one Sunday to perform his duty, he found a corporal’s
guard at the church door, who told him that the Committee
of Safety had put another divine in his place, and he was
requested to keep a quiet tongue in his head. He told
the men to ' lead him before their chiefs ’ (our honest
friend always loved tall words and tragic attitudes) ; and
958
THE VIRGINIANS
accordingly was marched through the streets to the Capitol,
with a chorus of white and coloured blackguards at the
skirts of his gown ; and had an interview with Mr. Henry
and the new State officers, and confronted the robbers, as
he said, in their den. Of course he was for making an
heroic speech before these gentlemen (and was one of
many men who perhaps woffid have no objection to be
made martyrs, so that they might be roasted coram 'populo,
or tortured in a full house), but Mr. Henry was determined
to give him no such chance. After keeping Hagan three
or four hours waiting in an ante-room in the company of
negroes, when the worthy divine entered the new chief
magistrate’s room with an undaunted mien, and began
a prepared speech with — Sir, by what authority am I,
a minister of the ‘ Mr. Hagan,’ says the other, inter-
rupting him, ‘ I am too busy to hsten to speeches. And
as for Bang George, he has henceforth no more authority
in this country than Bang Nebuchadnezzar. Mind you
that, and hold yoxir tongue, if you please ! Stick to IQng
John, sir, and King Macbeth ; and if you will send round
your benefit-tickets, all the assembly shall come and hear
you. Did you ever see Mr. Hagan on the boards, when
you was in London, general ? ’ And, so saying, Henry
turns round upon Mr. Washington’s second-in-command,
General Lee, who was now come into Virginia upon State
affairs, and our shame-faced good Hagan was bustled out
of the room, reddening, and almost crying with shame.
After this event we thought that Hagan’s ministrations
were best confined to us in the country, and removed the
worthy pastor from his restive lambs in the city.
The selection of Virginians to the very highest civil and
military appointments of the new government bribed and
flattered many of our leading people, who, but for the
outrageous conduct of our government, might have re-
mained faithful to the Crown, and made good head against
the rising rebellion. But, although we loyalists were
gagged and muzzled, though the Capitol was in the hands
of the Whigs, and our vaunted levies of loyal recruits so
many Falstaff’s regiments for the most part, the faithful
still kept intelligences with one another in the colony, and
with our neighbours ; and though we did not rise, and
though we ran away, and though in examination before
committees, justices, and so forth, some of our frightened
WE BOTH EIGHT AND RUN AWAY
959
people gave themselves Republican airs, and vowed perdi-
tion to kings and nobles ; yet we knew each other pretty
well, and — ^according as the chances were more or less
favourable to us, the master more or less hard— we con-
cealed our colours, showed our colours, half showed our
colours, or downright apostatized for the nonce, and cried,
‘ Down with King George ! ’ Our negroes bore about, from
house to house, all sorts of messages and tokens. Endless
underhand plots and schemed were engaged in by those
who could not afford the light. The battle over, the neutrals
come and join the winning side, and shout as loudly as
the patriots. The runaways are not counted. Will any
man tell me that the signers and ardent well-wishers of
the Declaration of Independence were not in a minority
of the nation, and that the minority did not win ? We
knew that a part of the defeated army of Massachusetts
was about to make an important expedition southward ;
upon the success of which the very greatest hopes were
founded ; and I, for one, being anxious to make a movement
as soon as there was any chance of activity, had put my-
self in communication with the ex-governor Martin, of
North Carolina, whom I proposed to join, with three or
four of our Virginian gentlemen, officers of that notable
corps of which we only wanted privates. We made no
particular mystery about our departure from Castlewood ;
the affairs of Congress were not going so well yet that the
new government could afford to lay any particular stress
or tyranny upon persons of a doubtful way of thinking.
Gentlemen’s houses were still open ; and in our southern
fashion we would visit our friends for months at a time.
My wife and I, with our infant and a fitting suite of servants,
took leave of Madam Esmond on a visit to a neighbouring
plantation. We went thence to another friend’s house,
and then to another, till finally we reached Wilmington,
in North Carolina, which was the point at which we
expected to stretch a hand to the succours which were
coming to meet us.
Ere our arrival, our brother Carolinian Royalists had
shown themselves in some force. Their encounters with
the Whigs had been unlucky. The poor Highlanders had
been no more fortunate in their present contest in favour
of King George, than when they had drawn their swords
against him in their own country. We did not reach
960
THE VIRGINIANS
Wilmington until the end of May, by which time we found
Admiral Parker’s squadron there, with General Clinton and
five British regiments on board, whose object was a descent
upon Charlestown.
The general, to whom I immediately made myself known,
seeing that my regiment consisted of Lady Warrington,
our infant, whom she was nursing, and three negro servants,
received us at first with a very grim welcome. But Captain
Horner, of the Sphinx frigate, who had been on the Jamaica
station, and received, like aU the rest of the world, many
kindnesses from our dear governor there, when he heard
that my wife was General Lambert’s daughter, eagerly
received her on board, and gave up his best cabin to our
service ; and so we were refugees, too, like my Lord Dun-
more, having waved our flag, to be sure, and pocketed it,
and slipped out at the teck door. Prom Wilmington we
bore away quickly to Charlestown, and in the course of
the voyage and our delay in the river, previous to our
assault on the place, I made some acquaintance with
Mr. Clinton, which increased to a further intimacy. It
was the king’s birthday when we appeared in the river;
we determined it was a glorious day for commencement of
the expedition.
It did not take place for some days after, and I leave
out, purposely, all descriptions of my Penelope parting
from her Hector, going forth on this expedition. In the
first place, Hector is perfectly well (though a httle gouty),
nor has any rascal of a Pyrrhus made a prize of his widow :
and in times of war and commotion, are not such scenes
of woe and terror, and parting, occurring every hour ?
I can see the gentle face yet over the bulwark, as we descend
the ship’s side into the boats, and the smile of the infant
on her arm. What old stories, to be sure ! Captain Miles,
having no natural taste for poetry, you have forgot the
verses, no doubt, in Mr. Pope’s Homer, in which you are
described as parting with your heroic father ; but your
mother often read them to you as a boy, and keeps the
gorget I wore on that day somewhere amongst her dressing-
boxes now.
My second venture at fighting was no more lucky than
my first. We came back to our ships that evening
thoroughly beaten. The madcap Lee, whom Clinton had
faced at Boston, now met him at Charlestown. Lee and
WE BOTH FIGHT AND RUN AWAY 961
the gallant garrison there, made a brilliant and most
successful resistance. The fort on Sullivan’s Island, which
we attacked, was a nut we could not crack. The fire of
all our frigates was not strong enough to pound its shell ;
the passage by which we moved up to the assault of the
place was not fordable, as those officers found — Sir Henry
at the head of them, who was always the first to charge —
who attempted to wade it. Death by shot, by drowning,
by catching my death of cold, I had braved before I returned
to my wife ; and our frigate being aground for a time and
got off with difficulty, was agreeably cannonaded by the
enemy until she got off her bank.
A small incident in the midst of this unlucky struggle
was the occasion of a subsequent intimacy which arose
between me and Sir Harry Clinton, and bound me to that
most gallant officer during the period in which it was my
fortune to follow the war. Of his qualifications as a leader
there may be many opinions, I fear to say : regarding
a man I heartily respect and admire, there ought only to
be one. Of his personal bearing and his courage there can
be no doubt ; he was always eager to show it ; and whether
at the final charge on Breed’s Hill, when at the head of
the rallied troops he carried the Continental lines, or here
before Sullivan’s Fort, or a year later at Fort Washington,
when, standard in hand, he swept up the height, and
entered the fort at the head of the storming column, Clinton
was always foremost in the race of battle, and the king’s
service knew no more admirable soldier.
We were taking to the water from our boats, with the
intention of forcing a column to the fort, through a way
which our own guns had rendered practicable, when a shot
struck a boat alongside of us, so well aimed, as actually
to put three-fourths of the boat’s crew hors de combat, and
knock down the officer steering, and the fiag behind him.
I could not help crying out, ‘ Bravo ! weU aimed ! ’ for no
ninepins ever went down more helplessly than these poor
fellows before the round shot. Then the general, turning
round to me, says rather grimly, ‘ Sir, the behaviour of
the enemy seems to please you ! ’ ‘I am pleased, sir,’
says I, ‘ that my countrymen, yonder, should fight as
becomes our nation.’ We floundered on towards the fort
in the midst of the same amiable attentions from small
arms and great, until we found the water was up to our
VIRGINIANS I i
962
THE VIEGINIANS '
breasts and deepening at every step, when we were fain
to take to our boats again and pull out of harm’s way. Sir
Henry waited upon my Lady Warrington on board the
Sphinx after this, and was very gracious to her, and mighty
facetious regarding the character of the humble writer of
the present memoir, whom his excellency always described
as a rebel at heart. I pray my children may live to see
or engage in no great revolutions, — such as that, for
instance, raging in, the country of our miserable French
neighbours. Save a very, very few indeed, the actors in
those great tragedies do not bear to be scanned too closely ;
the chiefs are often no better than ranting quacks ; the
heroes ignoble puppets : the heroines anything but pure.
The prize is not always to the brave. In our revolution
it certainly did fall, for once and for a wonder, to the most
deserving : but who knows his enemies now ? His great
and surprising triumphs were not in those rare engage-
ments with the enemy where he obtained a trifling mastery ;
but over Congress ; over hunger and disease ; over luke-
warm friends, or smiling foes in his own camp, whom his
great spirit had to meet, and master. When the struggle
was over, and our impotent chiefs who had conducted it
began to squabble and accuse each other in their own
defence before the nation, — ^what charges and counter-
charges were brought ; what pretexts of delay were urged ;
what piteous excuses were put forward that this fleet
arrived too late ; that that regiment mistook its orders ;
that these cannon-balls would not fit those guns : and so
to the end of the chapter ! . Here was a general who beat
us with no shot at times ; and no powder ; and no money ;
and Ae never thought of a convention ; his courage never
capitulated ! Through all the doubt and darkness, the
danger and long tempest of the war, I think it was only
the American leader’s indomitable soul that remained
entirely steady.
Of course our Charlestown expedition was made the
most of, and pronounced a prodigious victory by the
enemy, who had learnt (from their parents, perhaps) to
cry victory if a corporal’s guard were surprised, as loud
as if we had won a pitched battle. Mr. Lee rushed back
to Hew York, the conqueror of conquerors, trumpeting his
glory, and by no man received with more eager delight
than by the commander-in-chief of the American army.
WE BOTH FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
963
It was my dear Lee and my dear general between them,
then ; and it hath always touched me in the history of
our early Revolution to note that simple confidence and
admiration with which the general-in-chief was wont to
regard officers under him, who had happened previously
to serve with the king’s army. So the Mexicans of old
looked and wondered when they first saw an armed Spanish
horseman ! And this mad, flashy braggart (and another
Continental general, whose name and whose luck after-
wards were sufficiently notorious), you may be sure took
advantage of the modesty of the commander-in-chief, and
advised, and blustered, and sneered, and disobeyed orders ;
daily presenting fresh obstacles (as if he had not enough
otherwise !) in the path over which only Mr. Washing-
ton’s astonishing endurance could have enabled him to
march.
Whilst we were away on our South Carolina expedition,
the famous Fourth of July had taken place, and we and
the thirteen United States were parted for ever. My own
native state of Virginia had also distinguished itself by
announcing that all men are equally free ; that all^ power
is vested in the people, who have an inalienable right to
alter, reform, or abolish their form of government at
'pleasure, and that the idea of an hereditary first magistrate
is unnatural and absurd ! Our general presented me mth
this document fresh from Williamsburg, as we were sailing
northward by the Virginia capes, and, amidst not a little
amusement and laughter, pointed out to me the faith to
which, from the Fourth inst., inclusive, I was bound.
There was no help for it ; I was a Virginian — my god-
fathers had promised and vowed, in my name, that all
men were equally free (including, of course, the race of
poor Gumbo), that the idea of a monarchy is absurd, and
that I had the right to alter my form of government at
pleasure. I thought of Madam Esmond at home, and how
she would look when these articles of faith were brought
her to subscribe ; how would Hagan receive them ? He
demolished them in a sermon, in which all the logic was
on his side, W the U.S. Government has not, somehow,
been affected by the discourse ; and when he came to touch
upon the point that all men being free, therefore Gumbo
and Sady, and Nathan, had assuredly a right to go to
Congress: ‘Tut, tut! my good Mr. Hagan,’ says my
964
THE VIRGINIANS
mother, ' let us hear no more of this nonsense ; but leave
such wickedness and folly to the rebels ! ’
By the middle of August we were before New York,
whither Mr. Howe had brought his army that had betaken
itself to Halifax after its inglorious expulsion from Boston.
The American commander-in-chief was at New York, and
a great battle inevitable ; and I looked forward to it with
an inexpressible feeling. of doubt and anxiety, knowing
that my dearest brother and his regiment formed part of
the troops whom we must attack, and could not but over-
power. Almost the whole of the American army came
over to fight on a small island, where every officer on both
sides knew that they were to be beaten, and whence they
had not a chance of escape. Two frigates, out of a hundred
we had placed so as to command the enemy’s entrenched
camp and point of retreat across East River to New York,
would have destroyed every bark in which he sought to
fly, and compelled him to lay down his arms on shore.
He fought : his hasty levies were utterly overthrown ;
some of his generals, his best troops, his artillery taken ;
the remnant huddled into their entrenched camp after
their rout, the pursuers entering it with them. The victors
were called back ; the enemy was then pent up in a corner
of the island, and could not escape. ‘They are at our
mercy, and are ours to-morrow,’ says the gentle general.
Not a ship was set to watch the American force ; not
a sentinel of ours could see a movement in their camp.
A whole army crossed under our eyes in one single night
to the mainland without the loss of a single man ; and
General Howe was suffered to remain in command after
this feat, and to complete his glories of Long Island and
Breed’s Hill, at Philadelphia ! A friend, to be sure, crossed
in the night to say the enemy’s army was being ferried
over, but he fell upon a picket of Germans : they could
not understand him : their commander was boozing or
asleep. In the morning, when the spy was brought to
some one who could comprehend the American language,
the whole Continental force had crossed the East River,
and our empire over thirteen colonies had slipped away.
The, opinions I had about our chief were by no means
uncommon in the army ; though, perhaps, wisely kept
secret by gentlemen under Mr. Howe’s immediate com-
mand. Am I more unlucky than other folks, I wonder ?
WE BOTH FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
965
or why are my imprudent sayings carried about more than
my neighbours’ ? My rage that such a use was made of
such a victory was no greater than that of scores of gentle-
men with the army. Why must my name forsooth be
given up to the commander-in-chief as that of the most
guilty of the grumblers ? Personally, General Howe was
perfectly brave, amiable, and good-humoured.
‘ So, Sir George,’ says he, ‘ you find fault with me as
a military man, because there was a fog after the battle
on Long Island,* and your friends, the Continentals, gave
me the slip ! Surely we took and killed enough of them ;
but there is no satisfying you gentlemen amateurs 1 ’ and
he turned his back on me ; and shrugged his shoulders,
and talked to some one else. Amateur I might be, and
he the most amiable of men ; but if King George had
said to him, ‘Never more be officer of mine,’ yonder
agreeable and pleasant Cassio w’ould most certainly have
had his desert.
I soon found how our Chief had come in possession of
his information regarding myself. My admirable cousin,
Mr. William Esmond, — who of course had forsaken New
York and his post, when all the Royal authorities fled out
of the place, and Washington occupied it, — returned along
with our troops and fleets ; and, being a gentleman of
good birth and name, and well acquainted with the city,
made himself agreeable to the new-comers of the Royal
army, the young bloods, merry fellows, and macaronis, by
introducing them to play-tables, taverns, and yet worse
places, with which the worthy gentleman continued to be
familiar in the New World as in the Old. Coelum non
animum. However Will had changed his air, or, whither-
soever he transported his carcass, he carried a rascal in
his skin.
I had heard a dozen stories of his sayings regarding my
family, and was determined neither to avoid him nor seek
him, but to call him to account whensoever we met,
and chancing one day to be at a coffee-house in a friend’s
company, my worthy kinsman swaggered in with a couple
of young lads of the army, whom he found it was his
pleasure and profit now to lead into every kind of dissipa-
tion. I happened to know one of Mr. Will’s young com-
panions, an aide de camp of General Clinton’s who had
been in my close company both at Charlestown, before
966
THE VIEGINIANS
Sullivan’s Island, and in the action of Brooklyn, where
our general gloriously led the right wing of the Enghsh
army. They took a box without noticing us at first,
though I heard my name three or four times mentioned
by my brawling kinsman, who ended some drunken speech
he was making by slapping his fist on the table, and
swearing, " By , I will do for him, and the bloody
rebel, his brother ! ’
‘ Ah ! Mr. Esmond,’ says I, coming forward with my
hat on. (He looked a little pale behind his punch-bowl.)
‘ I have long wanted to see you, to set some little matters
right about which there has been a difference between us.’
‘ And what may those be, sir ? ’ says he, with a voUey
of oaths.
‘You have chosen to cast a doubt upon my courage,
and say that I shirked a meeting with you when we were
young men. Our relationship and our age ought to pre-
vent us from having recourse to such murderous foUies’
(Mr. Will started up looking fierce and relieved), ‘ but
I give you notice, that though I can afford to overlook
hes against myself, if I hear from you a word in disparage-
ment of my brother, Colonel Warrington, of the Continental
army, I will hold you accountable.’
‘Indeed, gentlemen. Mighty fine, indeed. You take
notice of Sir George Warrington’s words ! ’ cries Mr. Will
over his punch-bowl.
‘ You have been pleased to say,’ I continued, growing
angry as I spoke, and being a fool therefore for my pains,
‘that the very estates we hold in this country ate not
ours, but of right revert to your family ! ’
‘ So they are ours ! By George, they’re ours. I’ve
heard my brother Castlewood say so a score of times ! ’
swears Mr. Will.
‘In that case, sir,’ says I, hotly, ‘your brother, my
Lord Castlewood, tells no more truth than yourself. We
have the titles at home in Virginia. They are registered
in the courts there ; and if ever I hear one word more
of this impertinence, I shall call you to account where no
constables will be at hand to interfere ! ’
‘ I wonder,’ cries Will, in a choking voice, ‘ that I don’t
cut him into twenty thousand pieces as he stands there
before me with his confounded yellow face. It was my
brother Castlewood won his money — ^no, it was his brother ;
WE BOTH FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
967
d you, which are you, the rebel or the other ? I hate
the ugly faces of both of you, and, hick ! — ^if you are for
the king, show you are for the king, and drink his health ! ’
And he sank down into his box with a hiccup and a wild
laugh, which he repeated a dozen times, with a hundred
more oaths and vociferous outcries that I should drink the
king’s health.
To reason with a creature in this condition, or ask
explanations or apologies from him, was absurd. I left
Mr. Will to reel to hisTodgings under the care of his young
friends — ^who were surprised to find an old toper so suddenly
affected and so utterly prostrated by liquor — ^and limped
home to my wife, whom I foimd happy in possession of
a brief letter from Hal, which a countryman had brought
in ; and who said not a word about the affairs of the
Continentals with whom he was engaged, but wrote a couple
of pages of rapturous eulogiums upon his brother’s behaviour
in the field, which my dear Hal was pleased to admire, as
he admired everything I said and did.
I rather looked for a message from my amiable kinsman
in consequence of the speeches which had passed between
us the night before, and did not know but that I might
be called by Will to make my words good ; and when
accordingly Mr. Lacy (our companion of the previous
evening) made his appearance at an early hour of the
forenoon, I was beckoning my Lady Warrington to leave
us, when, with a laugh and a cry of ‘ Oh, dear no ! ’ Mr. Lacy
begged her ladyship not to disturb herself.
‘ I have seen,’ says he, ‘ a gentleman who begs to send
you his apologies if he uttered a word last night which
could offend you.’
‘ What apologies ? what words ? ’ asks the anxious wife.
I explained that roaring Will Esmond had met me in
a coffee-house on the previous evening, and quarrelled with
me, as he had done with hundreds before. ‘ It appears
the fellow is constantly abusive, and invariably pleads
drunkenness, and apologizes the next morning, unless he
is caned over-night,’ remarked Captain Lacy. And my
lady, I dare say, makes a little sermon, and asks why we
gentlemen will go to idle coffee-houses and run the risk
of meeting roaring, roystering Will Esmonds ?
Our sojourn in New York was enlivened by a project
for burning the city which some ardent patriots entertained
THE VntGINIANS
and partially executed. Several such schemes were laid
in the course of the war, and each one of the principal
cities was doomed to fire ; though, in the interests of peace
and goodwill, I hope it will be remembered that these
plans never originated with the cruel government of a
t3n:ant king, but were always proposed by gentlemen on
the Continental side, who vowed that, rather than remain
under the ignominious despotism of the rufi&an of Bruns-
wick, the fairest towns of America should burn. I presume
that the sages who were for burning down Boston were
not actual proprietors in that place, and the New York
burners might come from other parts of the country — ^from
Philadelphia, or what not. Howbeit, the British spared
you, gentlemen, and we pray you give us credit for this act
of moderation.
I had not the fortune to be present in the action on
the White Plains, being detained by the hurt which I had
received at Long Island, and which broke out again and
again, and took some time in the healing. The tenderest
of nurses w^atched me through my tedious malady, and
was eager for the day when I should doff my militia-coat
and return to the quiet English home where Hetty and
our good general were tending our children. Indeed I don’t
know that I have yet forgiven myself for the pains and
terrors that I must have caused my poor wife, by keeping
her separate from her young ones, and away from her
home, because, forsooth, I wished to see a little more of
the war then going on. Our grand tour in Europe had
been all very well. We had beheld St. Peter’s at Rome,
and the bishop thereof ; the Dauphiness of France (alas,
to think that glorious head should ever have been brought
so low !) at Paris ; and the rightful King of England at
Florence. I had dipt my gout in a half-dozen baths and
spas, and played cards in a hundred courts, as my Travels
in Europe (which I propose to publish after my completion
of the History of the American War) will testify.* And,
during our peregrinations, my hypochondria diminished
(which plagued me wofully at home) ; and my health and
spirits visibly improved. Perhaps it was because she saw
the evident benefit I had from excitement and change,
that my wife was reconciled to my continuing to enjoy
, * Neither of these two projected works of Sir George Warrington
were brought, as it appears, to a completion.
WE BOTH FIGHT AND RUN AWAY
969
them : and though secretly suffering pangs at being away
from her nursery and her eldest boy (for whom she ever
has had an absurd infatuation), the dear hypocrite scarce
allowed a look of anxiety to appear on her face ; encouraged
me with smiles ; professed herself eager to follow me ;
asked why it should be a sin in me to covet honour ?
and, in a word, was ready to stay, to go, to smile, to be
sad ; to scale mountains, or to go down to the sea in ships ;
to say that cold was pleasant, heat tolerable, hunger good
sport, dirty lodgings delightful ; though she is a wretched
sailor, very delicate about the little she eats, and an extreme
sufferer both of cold and heat. Hence, as I willed to stay
on yet awhile on my native continent, she was certain
nothing was so good for me ; and when I was minded to
return home — Oh, how she brightened, and kissed her
infant, and told him how he should see the beautiful
gardens at home, and Aunt Hetty, and grandpapa, and his
sister, and Miles. ‘ Miles ! ’ cries the little parrot, mocking
its mother — ^and crowing ; as if there was any mighty
mivilege in seeing Mr. Miles, forsooth, who was under
Doctor Sumner’s care at Harrow-on-the-Hill, where, to do
the gentleman justice, he showed that he could eat more
tarts than any boy in the school, and took most creditable
prizes at football and hare-and-hounds.
970
THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER XCI
SATIS PUGNAE
has always seemed to me (I
speak under the correction of
military gentlemen) that the
entrenchments of Breed’s Hill
served the Continental army
throughout the whole of our
American war. The slaughter
inflicted upon us from behind
those lines was so severe, and
the behaviour of the enemy
so resolute, that the British
chiefs respected the barricades
of the Americans afterwards ;
and were they firing from
behind a row of blankets,
certain of our generals rather
hesitated to force them. In
the affair of the White Plains,
when, for a second time,
Mr. Washington’s army was quite at the mercy of the
victors, we subsequently heard that our conquering troops
were held back before a barricade actually composed of
cornstalks and straw. Another opportunity was given
us, and lasted during a whole winter, during which the
dwindling and dismayed troops of Congress lay starving
and unarmed under our grasp, and the magnanimous
Mr. Howe left the famous camp of Valley Forge untouched,
whilst his great, brave, and perfectly appointed army
fiddled and gambled and feasted in Philadelphia. And,
by Bang’s countrymen, triumphal arches were erected,
tournaments were held in pleasant mockery of the middle
ages, and wreaths and garlands offered by beautiful ladies
to this clement chief, with fantastical mottoes and posies
announcing that his laurels should be immortal ! Why
have my ungrateful countrymen in America never erected
statues to this general ? They had not in all their army
an officer who fought their battles better ; who enabled
SATIS PUGNAE
971
them to retrieve their errors with such adroitness ; who
took care that their defeats should be so little hurtful to
themselves ; and when, in the course of events, the stronger
force naturally got the uppermost, who showed such an
untiring tenderness, patience, and complacency in helping
the poor disabled opponent on to his legs again* Ah !
think of eighteen years before and the fiery young warrior
whom England had sent out to fight her adversary on the
American continent. Fancy him for ever pacing round
the defences behind which the foe lies sheltered ; by night
and by day alike sleepless and eager ; consuming away
in his fierce wrath and longing, and never closing his eye,
so intent is it in watching ; winding the track with untiring
scent that pants and hungers for blood and battle ; prowling
through midnight forests, or climbing silent over precipices
before dawn ; and watching till his great heart is almost
worn out, until the foe shows himself at last, when he
springs on him and grapples with him, and, dying,
slays him ! Tliink of Wolfe at Quebec, and hearken to
Howe’s fiddles as he sits smiling amongst the dancers at
Philadelphia !
A favourite scheme with our ministers at home and
some of our generals in America, was to establish a com-
munication between Canada and New York, by which
means it was hoped New England might be cut off from
the neighbouring colonies, overpowered in detail, and forced
into submission. Burgoyne was entrusted with the con-
duct of the plan, and he set forth from Quebec, confidently
promising to bring it to a successful issue. His march
began in military state : the trumpets of his proclamations
blew before him ; he bade the colonists to remember the
immense power of England ; and summoned the misguided
rebels to lay down their arms. He brought with him
a formidable English force, an army of German veterans
not less powerful, a dreadful band of Indian warriors, and
a brilliant train of artillery. It was supposed that the
people round his march would rally to the royal cause
and standards. The Continental force in front of him was
small at first, and Washington’s army was weakened by
the withdrawal of troops who were hurried forward to
meet this Canadian invasion. A British detachment from
New York was to force its way up the Hudson, sweeping
away the enemy on the route, and make a junction with
972
THE VIRGINIANS
Burgoyne at Albany. Then was the time, when Washing-
ton’s weakened army should have been struck too ; but
a greater Power willed otherwise ; nor am I, for one, even
going to regret the termination of the war. As we look
over the game now, how clear seem the blunders which
were made by the losing side ! Prom the beginning to the
end we were for ever arriving too late. Our supplies and
reinforcements from home were too late. Our troops were
in difficulty, and our succours reached them too late. Our
fleet appeared off York Town just too late, after Corn-
wallis had surrendered. A way of escape was opened to
Burgoyne, but he resolved upon retreat too late. I have
heard discomfited officers in after-days prove infallibly how
a different wind would have saved America to us ; how
we must have destroyed the French fleet but for a tempest
or two ; how once, twice, thrice, but for nightfall, Mr.
Washington and his army were in our power. Who has
not speculated, in the course of his reading of history,
upon the ‘ Has been ’ and the ‘ Might have been ’ in the
world ? I take my tattered old map-book from the shelf,
and see the board on which the great contest was played ;
I wonder at the curious chances which lost it : and, putting
aside any idle talk about the respective bravery of the
two nations, can’t but see that we had the best cards,
and that we lost the game.
I own the sport had a considerable fascination for me,
and stirred up my languid blood. My brother Hal, when
settled on his plantation in Virginia, was perfectly satisfied
with the sports and occupations he found there. The
company of the country neighbours sufficed him ; he never
tired of looking after his crops and people, taking his fish,
shooting his ducks, hunting in his woods, or enjoying his
rubber, and his supper. Happy Hal, in his great barn of
a house, under his roomy porches, his dogs lying round
his feet ; his friends, the Virginian Will Wimbles, at free
quarters in his mansion ; his negroes fat, lazy, and ragged ;
his shrewd little wife ruling over them and her husband,
who always obeyed her implicitly when living, and who
was pretty speedily consoled when she died ! I say happy,
though his lot would have been intolerable to me ; — wife,
and friends, and plantation, and town life at Richmond
(Richmond succeeded to the honour of being the capital
when our Province became a State). How happy he whose
SATIS PUGNAE
973
foot fits the shoe which fortune gives him I My income
was five times as great, my house in England as large,
and built of bricks and faced with freestone ; my wife —
would I have changed her for any other wife in the world ?
My children — well, I am contented with my Lady War-
rington’s opinion about them. But with all these plums
and peaches and rich fruits out of Plenty’s horn poured
into my lap, I fear I have been but an ingrate ; and Hodge,
my gatekeeper, who shares his bread and scrap of bacon
with a family as large as his master’s, seems to me to
enjoy his meal as much as I do, though Mrs. Molly prepares
her best dishes and sweetmeats, and Mr. Gumbo uncorks
the choicest bottle from the cellar. Ah, me ; sweetmeats
have lost their savour for me, however they may rejoice
my young ones from the nursery, and the perfume of
claret palls upon old noses ! Our parson has poured out
his sermons many and many a time to me, and perhaps
I did not care for them much when he first broached them.
Dost thou remember, honest friend (sure he does, for he
has repeated the story over the bottle as many times as his
sermons almost, and my Lady Warrington pretends as if she
had never heard it),— I say , Joe Blake, thou rememberest full
well, and with advantages, that October evening when we
scrambled up an embrasure at Port Clinton, and a clubbed
musket would have dashed these valuable brains out, had
not Joe’s sword whipped my rebellious countryman through
the gizzard. Joe wore a red coat in those days (the uni-
form of the brave Sixty-third, whose leader, the bold Sill,
fell pierced with many wounds beside him). He exchanged
his red for black and my pulpit. His doctrines are sound,
and his sermons short. We read the papers together over
our wine. Not two months ago we read our old friend
Howe’s glorious deed of the first of June. We were told
how the noble Rawdon, who fought with us at Fort Clinton,
had joined the Duke of York : and to-day his royal high-
ness is in full retreat before Pichegru : and he and my son
Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing ! Ah, parson 1
would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat ?
(though I doubt Mrs. Blake coi^d never make the buttons
and button-holes meet again over your big body). The
boys were acting a play w^ith my militia sword. Oh that
I were young again, Mr. Blake ! that I had not the gout
in my toe ; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back
974
THE VIRGINIANS
into the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play
a little of life’s glorious game !
The last ‘ hit ’ which I saw played, was gallantly won
by our side ; though ’tis true that even in this 'parti the
Americans won the rubber — our people gaining only the
ground they stood on, and the guns, stores, and ships
which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at
rescue were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending
over Burgoyne’s unfortunate army. After one of those
delays which always were happening to retard our plans
and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to deliver,
an expedition was got under way from New York at the
close of the month of September, ’77 ; that, could it but
have advanced a fortnight earlier, might have saved the
doomed force of Burgoyne. 8ed Dis aliter visum. The
delay here was not Sir Henry Chntdn’s fault, who could
not leave his city unprotected ; but the winds and weather
which delayed the arrival of reinforcements which we had
long awaited from England. The fleet which brought them,
brought us long and fond letters from home, with the very
last news of the children under the care of their good Aunt
Hetty and their grandfather. The mother’s heart yearned
towards the absent young ones. She made me no re-
proaches : but I could read her importunities in her anxious
eyes, her terrors for me, and her longing for her children.
‘ Why stay longer ? ’ she seemed to say. ‘ You who have
no calling to this war, or to draw the sword against your
countrymen — ^why continue to imperil your life and my
happiness ? ’ I understood her appeal. We were to enter
upon no immediate service of danger ; I told her Sir Henry
was only going to accompany the expedition for a part
of the way. I would return with him, the reconnaissance
over, and Christmas, please Heaven, should see our family
once more united in England.
A force of three thousand men, including a couple of
slender regiments of American Loyalists, and New York
Militia (with which latter my distinguished relative, Mr. Will
Esmond, went as captain), was embarked at New York,
and our armament sailed up the noble Hudson river, that
presents finer aspects than the Rhine in Europe to my
mind ; nor was any fire opened upon us from those beetling
cliffs and precipitous ‘ palisades ’, as they are called, by
which we sailed ; the enemy, strange to say, being for once
SATIS PUGNAE
975
unaware of the movement we contemplated. Our first
landing was on the eastern bank, at a place called Ver-
plancks’ Point, whence the Congress troops withdrew after
a slight resistance, their leader, the tough old Putnam (so
famous during the war), supposing that our march was to
be directed towards the eastern highlands, by which we
intended to penetrate to Burgoyne. Putnam fell back to
occupy these passes, a small detachment of ours being sent
forward as if in pursuit, which he imagined was to be
followed by the rest of our force. Meanwhile, before day-
light, two thousand men without artillery were carried
over to Stoney Point on the western shore, opposite Ver-
plancks’, and under a great hill called the Dunderberg by
the old Dutch lords of the stream, and which hangs pre-
cipitously over it. A little stream at the northern base
of this mountain intersects it from the opposite height on
which Fort Clinton stood, named not after our general,
but after one of the two gentlemen of the same name,
who were amongst the oldest and most respected of the
provincial gentry of New York, and who were at this
moment actually in command against Sir Henry. On the
next height to Clinton is Fort Montgomery; and, behind
them rises a hill called Bear Hill ; whilst at the opposite
side of the magnificent stream stands ‘ Saint Antony’s
Nose ’, a prodigious peak indeed, which the Dutch had
quaintly christened.
The attacks on the two forts were almost simultaneous.
Half our men were detached for the assault on Fort Mont-
gomery, under the brave Campbell, who fell before the
rampart. Sir Henry, who would never be out of danger
where he could find it, personally led the remainder ; and
hoped, he said, that we should have better luck than before
the Sullivain Island. A path led up to the Dunderberg,
so narrow as scarcely to admit three men abreast, and in
utter silence our whole force scaled it, wondering at every
rugged step to meet with no opposition. The enemy had
not even kept a watch on it ; nor were we descried until
we were descending the height, at the base of which we
easily dispersed a small force sent hurriedly to oppose us.
The firing which here took place rendered all idea of a
surprise impossible. The fort was before us. With such
arms as the troops had in their hands, they had to assault ;
and silently and swiftly, in the face of the artillery playing
976
TEE VIRGINIANS
upon them, the troops ascended the hill. The men had
orders on no account to fire. Taking the colours of the
Sixty-third, and bearing them aloft. Sir Henry mounted
with the stormers. The place was so steep that the men
pushed each other over the wall and through the embrasures ;
and it was there that Lieutenant Joseph Blake, the father
of a certain. Joseph Clinton Blake, who looks with the eyes
of affection on a certain young lady, presented himself to
the living of Warrington by saving the life of the unworthy
patron thereof.
About a fourth part of the garrison, as we were told,
escaped out of the fort, the rest being killed or wounded,
or remaining our prisoners within the works. Fort Mont-
gomery was, in like manner, stormed and taken by our
people ; and, at night, as we looked down from the heights
where the king’s standard had been just planted, we were
treated to a splendid illumination in the river below.
Under Fort Montgomery, and stretching over to that lofty
prominence, called St. Antony’s Nose,, a boom and chain
had been laid with a vast cost and labour, behind which
several American frigates and galleys were anchored. The
fort being taken, these ships attempted to get up |the
river in the darkness, out of the reach of guns, which they
knew must destroy them in the morning. But the wind
was unfavourable, and escape was found to be impossible.
The crews therefore took to the boats, and so landeU,
having previously set the ships on fire, with all their sails
set ; and we beheld these magnificent p 3 ?Tamids of flame
burning up to the heavens and reflected in the water®
below, until, in the midst of prodigious explosions, the;^
sank and disappeared.
On the next day a parlementaire came in from the enemy,
to inquire as to the state of his troops left wounded or^
prisoners in our hands, and the Continental officer brought '
me a note, which gave me a strange shock, for it showed
that in the struggle of the previous evening my brother
had been engaged. It was dated October 7, from Major-
General George Clinton’s divisional head quarters, and it
stated briefly that ‘ Colonel H. Warrington, of the Virginia
line, hopes that Sir George Warrington escaped unhurt in
the assault of last evening, from which the Colonel himself
was so fortunate as to retire without the least injury’.
Never did I say my prayers more heartily and gratefully
SATIS PIJGNAE
977
than on that night, devoutly thanldng Heaven that my
dearest brother was spared, and making a vow at the
same time to withdraw out of the fratricidal contest, into
which I only had entered because Honour and Duty seemed
imperatively to call me.
I own I felt an inexpressible relief when I had come to
the resolution to retire and betake myself to the peaceful
shade of my own vines and fig-trees at home. I longed,
however, to see my brother ere I returned, and asked, and
easily obtained, an errand to the camp of the American
General Clinton from our own chief. The head-quarters
of his division were now some miles up the river, and a boat
and a flag of truce quickly brought me to the point where
his out-pickets received me on the shore. My brother
was very soon with me. He had only lately joined General
Clinton’s division with letters from head- quarters at Phila-
delphia, and he chanced to hear after the attack on Fort
Clinton that I had been present during the affair. We
passed a brief delightful night together ; Mr. Sady, who
always followed Hal to the war, cooking a feast in honour
of both his masters. There was but one bed of straw in
the hut where we had quarters, and Hal and I slept on it,
side by side, as we had done when we were boys. We
had a hundred things to say regarding past times and
present. His kind heart gladdened when I told him of
my resolve to retire to my acres and to take off the red
coat which I wore : he flung his arms round it. " Praised
be God ! ’ said he. ^ 0 Heavens, George ! think what
might have happened had we met in the affair two nights
ago ! ’ And he turned quite pale at the thought. He
eased my mind with respect to our mother. She was
a bitter Tory, to be sure, but the chief had given special
injunctions regarding her safety. ‘ And Fanny ’ (Hal’s
wife) ‘ watches over her, and she is as good as a company ! ’
cried the enthusiastic husband. ‘ Isn’t she clever ? Isn’t
she handsome ? Isn’t she good ? ’ cries Hal, never, for-
tunately, waiting for a reply to these ardent queries. ‘ And
to think that I was nearly marrying Maria once ! 0 mercy !
what an escape I had ! ’ he added. ‘ Hagan prays for the
king, every morning and night at Castlewood, but they bolt
the doors, and nobody hears. Gracious powers ! his wife
is sixty if she is a day ; and, 0 George ! the quantity she
drinks is . . .’ But why tell the failings of our good
978
THE VIRGINIANS
cousin ? I am pleased to think she lived to drink the health
of King George long after his Old Dominion had passed
for ever from his sceptre.
The morning came when my brief mission to the camp
was ended, and the truest of friends and fondest of brothers
accompanied me to my boat, which lay waiting at the
river-side. We exchanged an embrace at parting, and his
hand held mine yet for a moment ere I stepped into the
barge which bore me rapidly down the stream. ‘ Shall
I see thee once more, dearest and best companion of my
youth ? ’ I thought. ‘ Amongst our cold Englishmen, can
I ever hope to meet with a friend like thee ? When hadst
thou ever a thought that was not kindly and generous ?
When a wish, or a possession, but for me you would sacrifice
it ? How brave are you, and how modest ; how gentle,
and how strong ; how simple, unselfish, and humble ; ho^v
eager to see others’ merit ; how diffident of your own ! ’
He stood on the shore till his figure grew dim before me.
There was that in my eyes which prevented me from seeing
him longer.
Brilliant as Sir Henry’s success had been, it was achieved,
as usual, too late ; and served but as a small set-off against
the disaster of Burgoyne which ensued immediately, and
which our advance was utterly inadequate to relieve. More
than one secret messenger was dispatched to him who
never reached him, and of whom we never learned the
fate. Of one wretch who offered to carry intelligence to
him, and whom Sir Henry dispatched with a letter of his
own, we heard the miserable doom. Falling in with some
of the troops of General George Clinton, who happened to
be in red uniform (part of the prize of a British ship’s
cargo, doubtless, which had been taken by American
privateers), the spy thought he was in the English army,
and advanced towards the sentries. He found his mistake
too late. His letter was discovered upon him, and he had
to die for bearing it. In ten days after the success at the
Forts occurred the great disaster at Saratoga, of which we
carried the dismal particulars in the fleet which bore us
home. I am afraid my wife was unable to mourn for it.
She had her children, her father, her sister to revisit, and
daily and nightly thanks to pay to Heaven that had brought
her husband safe out of danger
979
CHAPTER XCII
UNDER VINE AND EIG-TBEE
N,\|\ ^eeb I describe, young folks,
W/Jk/ delights of the meeting
at home, and the mother’s
vWSPwiilW happiness with all her brood
once more under her fond
wings ? It was wrote in her
face, and acknowledged on
her knees. Our house was
11 large enough for all, but Aunt
Hetty would not stay in it.
She said, fairly, that to resign
her imtherhood over the elder
children, who had been hers
for nearly three years, cost
her too great a pang ; and
she could not bear for yet
a while to be with them, and
to submit to take only the
second place. So she and her
father went away to a house
at Bury St. Edmunds, not far
from us, where they lived, and where she spoiled her eldest
nephew and niece in private. It was the year after w^e
came home that Mr. B , the Jamaica planter, died,
who left her the half of his fortune ; and then I heard,
for the first time, how the worthy gentleman had been
greatly enamoured of her in Jamaica, and, though she had
refused him, had thus shown his constancy to her. Heaven
knows how much property of Aunt Hetty’s Monsieur Miles
hath already devoured ! the price of his commission and
outfit ; his gorgeous uniforms ; his play-debts and little
transactions in the Minories do you think, sirrah, I do
not know what human nature is ; what is the cost of Pall
Mall taverns, ^etits soupers, play — even in moderation —
at the ‘Cocoa-Tree’; and that a gentleman cannot purchase
all these enjoyments with the five hundred a year which
I allow him ? Aunt Hetty declares she has made up her
980
THE VIRGINIANS
mind to be an old maid. ‘ I made a vow never to marry
until I could find a man as good as my dear father,’ she
said ; ‘ and I never did, Sir George. No, my dearest
Theo, not half as good ; and Sir George may put that in
his pipe and smoke it.’
And yet when the good general died ^alm, and full of
years, and glad to depart), I think it was my wife who
shed the most tears. ‘ I weep because I think I did not
love him enough,’ said the tender creature : whereas Hetty
scarce departed from her calm, at least outwardly and
before any of us ; talks of him constantly still, as though
he were alive ; recalls his merry sayings, his gentle, kind
ways with his children (when she brightens up and looks
herself quite a girl again), and sits cheerfully looking up
to the slab in church which records his name and some
of his virtues, and for once teUs no lies.
I had fancied, sometimes, that my brother for
whom Hetty had a juvenile passion, always retained a hold
of her heart ; and when he came to see us, ten years ago,
I told him of this childish romance of Het’s, with the
hope, I own, that he would ask her to replace Mrs. Fanny,
who had been gathered to her fathers, and regarding whom
my wife (with her usual propensity to consider herself
a miserable sinner) always reproached herself, because,
forsooth, she did not regret Fanny enough. Hal, when
he came to us, was plunged in grief about her loss ; and
vowed that the world did not contain such another woman.
Our dear old general, who was still in life then, took him
in and housed him, as he had done in the happy early days.
The women played him the very same tunes which he had
heard when a boy at Oakhurst. Everybody’s heart was
very soft with old recollections, and Harry never tired of
pouring out his griefs and his recitals of his wife’s virtues
to Het, and anon of talking fondly about his dear Aunt
Lambert, whom he loved with all his heart, and whose
praises, you may be sure, were welcome to the faithful old
husband, out of whose thoughts his wife’s memory was
never, I believe, absent for any three waking minutes of
the day.
General Hal went to Paris as ah American general
officer in his blue and yellow (which Mr. Fox and other
gentlemen had brought into fashion here likewise), and was
made much of at Versailles, although he was presented by
981
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE
Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette to the Most Christian
king and queen, who did not love Monsieur le Marquis.
And I believe a marquise took a fancy to the Virginian
general, and would have married him out of hand, had
he not resisted, and fled back to England and Warrington
and Bury again, especially to the latter place, where the
folks would listen to him as he talked about his late wife,
with an endless patience and sympathy. As for us, who
had known the poor paragon, we were civil, but not quite
so enthusiastic regarding her, and rather puzzled some-
times to answer our children’s questions about Uncle Hal’s
angel wife.
The two generals and myself, and Captain Miles, and
Parson Blake (who was knocked over at Monmouth, the
year after I left America, and came home to change his
coat, and take my living), used to fight the battles of the
Revolution over our bottle ; and the parson used to cry,
‘By Jupiter, general’ (he compounded for Jupiter, when
he laid down his military habit), ‘ you are the Tory, and
Sir George is the Whig ! He is always finding fault with
our leaders, and you are for ever standing up for them ;
and when I prayed for the king last Sunday, I heard you
following me quite loud.’
‘ And so I do, Blake, with all my heart ; I can’t forget
I wore his coat,’ says Hal.
‘ Ah, if Wolfe had been alive for twenty years more ! ’
says Lambert.
‘ Ah, sir,’ cries Hal, ‘ you should hear the general talk
about him ! ’
‘ What general ? ’ says I (to vex him).
‘ My general,’ says Hal, standing up, and filling a
bumper, ‘ His Excellency General George Washington ! ’
‘ With all my heart,’ cry I ; but the parson looks as if
he did not like the toast or the claret.
Hal never tired in speaking of his general ; and it was
on some such evening of friendly converse, that he told
us how he had actuaUy been in disgrace with this general
whom he loved so fondly. Their difference seems to have
been about Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette before men-
tioned, who played such a fine part in history of late,
and who hath so suddenly disappeared out of it. His
previous rank in our own service, and his acknowledged
gallantry during the war, ought to have secured Colonel
TOE VIRGINIANS
Warrington’s promotion in the Continental army, where
a whipper-snapper like M. de Lafayette had but to arrive
and straightway to be complimented by Congress with
the rank of major-general. Hal, with the freedom of an old
soldier, had expressed himself somewhat contemptuously
regarding some of the appointments made by Congress,
with whom all sorts of miserable intrigues and cabals
were set to work by unscrupulous officers greedy of pro-
motion. Mr. Warrington, imitating perhaps in this the
example of his now illustrious friend of Mount Vernon,
affected to make the war en gentilhomme ; took his pay,
to be sure, but spent it upon comforts and clothing for
his men’ ; and as for rank, declared it was a matter of no
earthly .concern to him, and that he would as soon serve
as colonel as in any higher grade. No doubt he added
contemptuous remarks regarding certain general officers
of Congress army, their origin, and the causes of their
advancement : notably he was very angry about the sudden
promotion of the young French lad just named — ^the marquis,
as they loved to call him — ^in the Republican army, and
who, by the way, was a prodigious favourite of the Chief
himself. There were not three officers in the whole Con-
tinental force (after poor madcap Lee was taken prisoner
and disgraced) who could speak the marquis’s language,
so that Hal could judge the young major-general more
closely and familiarly than other gentlemen, including
the commander-in-chief himself. Mr. Washington good-
naturedly rated friend Hal for being jealous of the beardless
commander of Auvergne ; was himself not a little pleased
by the fflial regard and profound veneration which the
enthusiastic young nobleman always showed for him ;
and had, moreover, the very best politic reasons for treating
the marquis with friendship and favour.
Meanwhile, as it afterwards turned out, the commander-
in-chief was most urgently pressing Colonel Warrington’s
promotion upon Congress ; and, as if his difficulties before
the enemy were not enough, he being at this hard time
of winter entrenched at Valley Forge, commanding five
or six thousand men at the most, almost without fire,
blankets, food, or ammunition, in the face of Sir William
Howe’s army, which was perfectly appointed, and three
times as numerous as his own ; as if, I say, this difficulty
was not enough to try him, he had further to encounter
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE
983
the cowardly distrust of Congress, and insubordination
and conspiracy amongst the officers in his own camp.
During the a'wdul winter of ’77, when one blow struck by
the sluggard at the head of the British forces might have
ended the war, and all was doubt, confusion, despair in
the opposite camp (save in one indomitable breast alone),
my brother had an interview with the Chief, which he
has subsequently described to me, and of which Hal could
never speak without giving way to deep^ emotion. Mr.
Washington had won no such triumph as that which the
dare-devil courage of Arnold and the elegant imbecihty
of Burgoyne had procured for Gates and the northern
army. Save in one or two minor encounters, which
praved how daring his bravery was, and how unceasing
his watchfulness, General Washington had met with
defeat after defeat from an enemy in all points his superior.
The Congress mistrusted him. Many an officer in his
own camp hated him. Those who had been disappointed
in ambition, those who had been detected in peculation,
those whose selfishness or mcapacity his honest eyes had
spied out, — ^were all more or less in league against him.
Gates was the chief towards whom the malcontents turned.
Mr. Gates was the only genius fit to conduct the war ;
and with a vaingloriousness, which he afterwards gener-
ously owned, he did not rduse the homage which was
paid him.
To show how dreadful were the troubles and anxieties
with which General Washington had to contend, I may
mention what at this time was called the ‘Conway Cabal’.
A certain Irishman — a Chevalier of St. Louis, and an
officer in the French service — arrived in America early
in the year ’77 in quest of military employment. He was
speedily appointed to the rank of brigadier ; and could
not be contented, forsooth, without an immediate promotion
to be major-general.
Mr. C. had friends at Congress, who, as the general-in-
chief was informed, had promised him his speedy promotion.
General Washington remonstrated, representing the injus-
tice of promoting to the highest rank the youngest brigadier
in the service ; and whilst the matter was pending, was
put in possession of a letter from Conway to General
Gates, whom he complimented, saying, that ‘ Heaven
had been determined to save America, or a weak general
984
I'HE VIRGINIANS
and bad councillors would have ruined it’. The general
enclosed the note to Mr. Conway, without a word of com-
ment ; and Conway ojffered his resignation, which was
refused by Congress, who appointed him inspector-general
of the army, with the rank of major-general.
‘ And it was at this time,’ says Harry (with many pas-
sionate exclamations indicating his rage with himself
and his admiration of his leader^ ‘when, by Heavens, the
glorious Chief was oppressed by troubles enough to drive
ten thousand men mad — that I must interfere with my
jealousies about the Frenchman ! I had not said much,
only some nonsense to Greene and Cadwalader about
getting some frogs against the Frenchman came to dine
with us, and having a bagful of marquises over from Paris,
as we were not able to command ourselves ; — but I should
have known the chief’s troubles, and that he had a better
head than mine, and might have had the grace to hold
my tongue.
‘ For a while the general said nothing, but I could remark,
by the coldness of his demeanour, that something had
occurred to create a schism between him and me. Mrs.
Washington, who had come to camp, also saw that some-
thing was wrong. Women have artful ways of soothing
men and finding their secrets out. I am not sure that
I should have ever tried to learn the cause of the general’s
displeasure, for I am as proud as he is, and besides ’ (says
Hal) ‘ when the Chief is angry, it was not pleasant coming
near him, I can promise you.’ My brother was indeed
subjugated by his old friend, and obeyed him and bowed
before him as a boy before a schoolmaster.
‘ At last,’ Hal resumed, ‘ Mrs. Washington found out
the mystery. “ Speak to me after dinner. Colonel Hal,”
says she. “ Come out to the parade-ground, before the
dining-house, and I will tell you all.” I left a haM-score
of general officers and brigadiers drinking round the
general’s table, and found Mrs. Washington waiting for me.
She then told me it was the speech I had made about the
box of marquises, with which the general was offended.
“ I should not have heeded it in another,” he had said,
“ but I never thought Harry Warrington would have
joined against me.”
‘ I had to wait on him for the word that night, and
found him alone at his table. “ Can your excellency
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE
985
give me five minutes’ time ? ” I said, with my heart
in my mouth. “ Yes, surely, sir,” says he, pointing to
the other chair, ‘‘ will you please to be seated ? ”
‘ “ It used not always to be sir and Colonel Warrington,
between me and your excellency,” I said.
‘ He said, calmly, “ The times are altered.”
" “ Et nos mutamur in illis,” says I. “ Times and
people are both changed.”
You had some business with me ? ” he asked.
Am I speaking to the commander-in-chief or to my
old friend ? ” I asked.
‘ He looked at me gravely. “ WeU, — ^to both, sir,” he
said. “ Pray sit, Harry.”
‘ “ If to General Washington, I tell his excellency that I,
and many officers of this army, are not well pleased to see
a boy of twenty made a major-general over us, because
he is a marquis, and because he can’t speak the English
language. K I speak to my old friend, I have to say that
he has shown me very little of trust or friendship for the
last few weeks ; and that I have no desire to sit at your
table, and have impertinent remarks made by others there,
of the way in which his excellency turns his back on me.”
‘ “ Which charge shall I take first, Harry ? ” he asked,
turning his chair away from the table, and crossing his
legs as if ready for a talk. ‘‘ You are jealous, as I gather,
about the marquis ? ”
‘ “ Jealous ! sir,” says I ; ‘"an aide de camp of Mr.
Wolfe is not jealous of a Jack-a-dandy who, five years ago,
was being whipped at school ! ”
‘ “ You yourself declined higher rank than that which
you hold,” says the chief, turning a little red.
‘ “ But I never bargained to have a macaroni marquis
to command me 1 ” I cried ; “ I will not, for one, carry
the young gentleman’s orders ; and since Congress and
your excellency chooses to take your generals out of the
nursery, I shall humbly ask leave to resign, and retire
to my plantation.”
‘ “ Do, Harry ; that is true friendship ! ” says the chief,
with a gentleness that surprised me. “ Now that your
old friend is in a difficulty, ’tis surely the best time to
leave him.”
‘ “ Sir ! ” says I.
‘ “ Do as so many of the rest are doing, Mr. Warrington.
986
THE VIRGINIANS
Et in, Brute., as the play says. Well, well, Harry ! I did
not think it of you ; but, at least, you are in the fashion.’’
‘ “ You asked which charge you should take first ? ”
I said.
‘ “ Oh, the promotion of the marquis ? I recommended
the appointment to Congress, no doubt ; and you and
other gentlemen disapprove it.”
‘ ‘‘ I have spoken for myself, sir,” says I.
‘ “ If you take me in that tone, Colonel Warrington,
I have nothing to answer ! ” says the chief, rising up
very fiercely ; “ and presume that I can . recommend
officers for promotion without asking your previous sanc-
tion.”
" “ Being on that tone, sir,” says I, “ let me respectfully
ofier my resignation to your excellency, founding my
desire to resign upon the fact, that Congress, at your
excellency’s recommendation, offers its highest commands
to boys of twenty, who are scarcely even acquainted with
our language.” And I rise up and make his excellency
a bow.
‘ “ Great Heavens, Harry ! ” he cries — (about -this
marquis’s appointment ; he was beaten, that was the fact,
and he could not reply to me) — Can’t you believe that
in this critical time of our affairs, there are reasons why
special favours should be shown ' to the first frenchman
of distinction who comes amongst us ? ”
‘ “ No doubt, sir. If your excellency acknowledges
that Monsieur de Lafayette’s merits have nothing to do
with the question.”
‘ “ I acknowledge or deny nothing, sir 1 ” says the general,
with a stamp of his foot, and looking as though he could
be terribly angry ff he would. “ Am I here to be catechized
by you ? Stay. Hark, Harry ! I speak to you as a man
of the world — ^nay, as an old friend. This appointment
humiliates you and others, you say ? Be it so ! Must
we not bear humihation along with the other burthens
and griefs for the sake of our country ? It is no more
just perhaps that the marquis should be set over you
gentlemen, than that your Prince Ferdinand or your
Prince of Wales at home should have a command over
veterans. But if in appointing this young nobleman we
please a whole nation, and bring ourselves twenty millions
of allies, wiU you and other gentlemen sulk because we do
UNDBK VINE AND FIG-TREE
987
him honour ? ’Tis easy to sneer at him (though, believe
rne, the marquis has many more merits than you allow
him) ; to my mind it were more generous as well as more
polite of Harry Warrington to welcome this stranger for
the sake of the prodigious benefit our country may draw
from him — ^not to laugh at his peculiarities, but to aid him
and help his ignorance by your experience as an old soldier :
that is what I would do — ^that is the part I expected of
thee — ^for it is the generous and the manly one, Harry :
but you choose to join my enemies, and when I am in
trouble you say you will leave me. That is why I have
been hurt : that is why I have been cold. I thought I might
count on your friendship — and — and you can teU whether
I was right or no. I relied on you as on a brother, and you
come and teU me you wiU resign. Be it so ! Being em-
barked in this contest, by God’s will I will see it to an end.
You are not the first, Mr. Warrington, has left me on the
way.”
‘He spoke with so much tenderness, and as he spoke
his face wore such a look of unhappiness, that an extreme
remorse and pity seized me, and I called out I know not
what incoherent expressions regarding old times, and
vowed that if he would say the word, I never would leave
him. You never loved him, George,’ says my brother,
turning to me, ‘ but I did beyond all mortal men ; and,
though I am not clever like you, I think my instinct was
in the right. He has a greatness not approached by other
men ’
‘ I don’t say no, brother,’ said I, ‘ now.’
‘ Greatness*, pooh ! ’ says the parson, growling over his
wine.
‘ We walked into Mrs. Washington’s tea-room arm-in-
arm,’ Hal resumed, ‘she looked up quite kind, and saw
we were friends. “ Is it all over. Colonel Harry ? ” she
whispered. “ I know he has applied ever so often about
your promotion ”
‘ “ I never will take it,” says I. “ And that is how
I came to do 'penance , says Harry, telling me the story,
“ with Lafayette the next winter.” (Hal could imitate
the Frenchman very well.) “ I will go weez heem,"" says I.
“ I know the way to Quebec, and when we are not in
action with Sir Guy, I can hear his excellency the major-
general say his lesson.” There was no fight, you know :
THE VIRGINIANS
we could get no army to act in Canada, and returned to
head-quarters; and what do you think disturbed the French-
man most ? The idea that people would laugh at him,
because his command had come to nothing. And so they
did laugh at him, and almost to his face too, and who
could help it ? If our chief had any weak point it was
this marquis.
‘ After Qur little difference we became as great friends
as before — ^if a man may be said to be friends with a
sovereign prince, for . as such I somehow could not help
regarding the general : and one night, when we had sat
the company out, we talked of old times, and the joUy
days of sport we had together both before and after Brad-
dock’s ; and that pretty duel you were near having when we
were boys. He laughed about it, and said he never saw a
man look more wicked and more bent on killing than you did ;
“ And to do Sir George justice, I think he has hated me ever
since,” says the chief. “ Ah ! ” he added, “ an open enemy
I can face readily enough. ’Tis the secret foe who causes
the doubt and anguish ! We have sat with more than one
at my table to-day to whom I am obliged to show a face
of ci'^ity, whose hands I must take when they are offered,
though i know they are stabbing my reputation, and are
eager to pull me down from my place. You spoke but
lately of being humiliated because a junior was set over
you in command. What humiliation is yours compared
to mine, who have to play the farce of welcome to these
traitors ; who have to bear the neglect of Congress, and
see men who have insulted me promoted in my own army ?
If I consulted my own feelings as a man, would I continue
in this command ? You know whether my temper is
naturally warm or not, and whether as a private gentleman
I should be hkely to suffer such slights and outrages as
are put upon me daily ; but in the advancement of the
sacred cause in which we are engaged, we have to endure
not only hardship and danger, but calumny and wrong,
and may God give us strength to do our duty ! ” And
then the general showed me the papers regarding the affair
of that fellow Conway, whom Congress promoted in spite
of the intrigue, and down whose black throat John Cad-
walader sent the best ball he ever fired m his life.
‘ And it was here,’ said Hal, concluding his story, ‘ as
I looked at the Chief talking at night in the silence of the
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE
camp, and remembered how lonely he was ; what an
awful responsibility he carried ; how spies and traitors
were eating out of his dish, and an enemy lay in front
of him who might at any time overpower him, that I
thought, “ Sure, this is the greatest man now in the world ;
and what a wretch I am to think of my jealousies and
annoyances, whilst he is walking serenely under his immense
cares ! ” ’
‘ We talked but now of Wolfe,’ said I. ‘ Here, indeed,
is a greater than Wolfe. To endure is greater than to dare ;
to tire out hostile fortune ; to be daunted by no difficulty ;
to keep heart when all have lost it ; to go through intrigue
spotless ; and to forgo even ambition when the end is
gained. Who can say this is not greatness, or show the
other Englishman who has achieved so much ? ’
‘ I wonder, Sir George, you did not take Mr. Washington’s
side, and wear the blue and buff yourself,’ grumbles Parson
Blake.
‘ You and I thought scarlet most becoming to our com-
plexion, Joe Blake I ’ says Sir George. ‘ And my wife
thinks there would not have been room for two such great
men on one side.’
‘ Well, at any rate, you were better than that odious,
swearing, crazy General Lee, who was second in command ! ’
cries Lady Warrington. ‘ And I am certain Mr. W ashington
never could write poetry and tragedies as you can ! What
did the general say about George’s tragedies, Harry ? ’
Harry burst into a roar of laughter (in which, of course,
Mr. Miles must join his uncle).
‘ Well ! ’ says he, ‘ it’s a fact that Hagan read one at
my house to the general and Mrs. Washington and several
iliore, and they aU fell sound asleep ! ’
‘ He never liked my husband, that is the truth ! ’ says
Theo, tossing up her head, ‘ and ’tis all the more magnani-
mous of Sir George to speak so well of him.’
And then Hal told how, his battles over, his country
freed, his great work of liberation complete, the general
laid down his victorious sword, and met his comrades of
the army in a last adieu. The last British soldier had
quitted the shore of the Bepubhc, and the conimander-
in-chief proposed to leave New York for Annapolis, where
Congress was sitting, and there resign his commission.
About noon, on the 4th December, a barge was in waiting
990
THE VIRGINIANS
at Whitehall Ferry to convey him across the Hudson.
The chiefs of the army assembled at a tavern near the ferry,
and there the general joined them. Seldom as he, showed
his emotion outwardly, on this day he could not disguise
it. He filled a glass of wine, and said, ‘ I bid you farewell
with a heart full of love and gratitude, and wish your
latter days may be as prosperous and happy as those
past have been glorious and honourable.’ Then he drank
to them. ‘ I cannot come to each of you to take my leave,’
he said, ‘ but shall be obliged i£ you will each come and
shake me by the hand.’
General Knox, who was nearest, came forward, and
the chief, with tears ‘in his eyes, embraced him. The
others came, one by one, to him, and took their leave
without a word. A line of infantry was formed from
the tavern to the ferry, and the general, with his officers
following him, walked silently to the water. He stood
up in the barge, taking off his hat, and waving a farewell.
And his comrades remained bareheaded on the shore till
their leader’s boat was out of view.
As Harry speaks very low, in the grey of evening, with
sometimes a break in his voice, we aU sit touched and
silent. Hetty goes up and kisses her father.
‘ You tell us of others, General Harry,’ she says, passing
a handkerchief across her eyes, ‘ of Marion and Sumpter,
of Greene and Wayne, and Rawdon and Cornwallis, too,
but you never mention Colonel Warrington ! ’
‘ My dear, he will teU you his story in private ! ’ whispers
my wife, clinging to her sister, ‘ and you can write it for
him.’
But it was not to be. My lady Theo and her husband
too, I own, catching the infection from her, never would
let Harry rest, until we had coaxed, wheedled, and ordered
him to ask Hetty in marriage. He obeyed, and it was
she who now declined. ‘ She had always,’ she said, ‘ the
truest regard for him from the dear old times when they
had met as almost children together. But she would
never leave her father. When it pleased God to take him,
she hoped she would be too old to think of bearing any other
name but her own. Harry should have her love always
as the best of brothers ; and as George and Theo have
such a nursery full of children,’ adds Hester, "we must
show our love to them, by saving for the young ones.’ She
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE
991
sent him her answer in writing, leaving home on a visit
to friends at a distance, as though she would have him
to understand that her decision was final. As such Hal
received it. He did not break his heart. Cupid’s arrows,
ladies, don’t bite very deep into the tough skms of gentle-
men of our age ; though, to be sure, at the time of which
I write, my brother was still a young man, being little
more than fifty. Aunt Het is now a staid little lady
with a voice of which years have touched the sweet
chords, and a head which Time has powdered over with
silver. There are days when she looks surprisingly young
and blooming. Ah me, my dear, it seems but a little
while since the hair was golden brown, and the cheeks
as fresh as roses 1 And then came the bitter blast of love
unrequited which withered them ; and that long loneliness
of heart which, they say, follows. Why should Theo and
I have been so happy, and thou so lonely ? Why should
my meal be garnished with love, and spread with plenty,
while yon solitary outcast shivers at my gate ? I bow my
head humbly before the Dispenser of pain and poverty,
wealth and health ; I feel sometimes as if, for the prizes
which have fallen to the lot of me unworthy, I did not
dare to be grateful. But I hear the voices of my
children in their garden, or look up at their mother from
my book, or perhaps my sick-bed, and my heart fills with
instinctive gratitude towards the bountiful Heaven that
has so blest me
Since my accession to my uncle’s title and estate my
intercourse with my good cousin Lord Castlewood had
been very rare. I had always supposed him to be a follower
of the winning side in politics, and was not a little astonished
to hear of his sudden appearance in opposition. A dis-
appointment in respect to a place at Court, of which he
pretended to have had some promise, was partly the
occasion of his rupture with the ministry. It is said that the
most August Person in the realm had flatly refused to
receive into the r-y-l household a nobleman whose character
was so notoriously bad, and whose example (so the August
Objector was pleased to say) would ruin and corrupt any
respectable family. I heard of the Castlewoods during our
travels in Europe, and that the mania for play had again
seized upon his lordship. His impaired fortunes having
992
THE VIRGINIANS
been retrieved by the prudence of his wife and father-in-
law, he had again begun to dissipate his income at hombre
and lansquenet. There were tales of malpractices in which
he had been discovered, and even of chastisement inflicted
upon him by the victims of his unscrupulous arts. His
wife’s beauty and freshness faded early ; we met but once
at Aix-la-Chapelle, where Lady Castlewood besought my
wife to go and see her, and afflicted Lady Warrington’s
kind heart by stories of the neglect and outrage of which
her unfortunate husband was guilty. We were willing
to receive these as some excuse and palliation for the un-
happy lady’s own conduct. A notorious adventurer,
gamblqr, and spadassin, calling himself the Chevalier de
Barry, and said to be a relative of the mistress of the
French king, but afterwards turning out to be an Irishman
of low extraction, was in constant attendance upon the
earl and countess at this time, and conspicuous for the
audacity of his lies, the extravagance of his play, and
somewhat mercenary gallantry towards . ,tho other sex,
and a ferocious bravo courage, which, however, failed
him on one or two awkward occasions, if common report
said true. He subsequently married, and rendered nliiseirr
able, a lady of title and fortune in England. The poor
little American lady’s interested union with Lord Castlewood
was scarcely more happy.
I remember our little Miles’s infantile envy being excited
by learning that Lord Castlewood’s second son, a child
a few months younger than himself, was already an ensign
on the Irish establishment, whose pay the fond parents
regularly drew. This piece of preferment my lord must
have got for his cadet whilst he was on good terms with
the minister, during which period of favour Will Esmond
was also shifted off to New York. Whilst I was in America
myself, we read in an English journal that Captain Charles
Esmond ’ had resigned his commission in his Majesty’s
service, as not wishing to take up arms against the country-
men of his mother, the Countess of Castlewood. ‘ It is
the doing of the old fox. Van den Bosch,’ Madam Esmond
said; ‘he wishes to keep his Virginian property safe,
whatever ride should win I ’ I may mention, with respect
to this old worthy, that he continued to reside in England
for a while after the Declaration of Independence, not
at all denying his sympathy with the American cause,
UNDER VINE AND EIG-TREE
^93
but keeping a pretty (juiet tongue, and alleging that such
a very old man as himself was past the age of action or
mischief, in which opinion the government concurred,
no doubt, as he was left quite unmolested* But of a
sudden a warrant was out after him, when it was surprising
with what agility he stirred himself, and skipped off to
France, whence he presently embarked upon hia return
to Virginia.
The old man bore the worst reputation amongst the
Loyalists of our colony ; and was nicknamed ‘ Jack the
Painter ^ amongst them, much to his indignation, after
a certain miscreant who was hung in England for burning
naval stores in our ports there. He professed to have
lost prodigious sums at home by the persecution of the
government, distinguished himself by the loudest patriot-
ism and the most violent religious outcries in Virginia ;
where, nevertheless, he was not much more hked by the
Whigs than by the party who still remained faithful to
the crown. He wondered that such an old Tory as Madam
Esmond of Castlewood was suffered to go at large, and was
for ever crying out against her amongst the gentlemen
of the new assembly, the governor, and officers of the
state. He and Fanny had high words in Richmond
one day, when she told him he was an old swindler and
traitor, and that the mother of Colonel Henry Warrington,
the bosom friend of his excellency the commander-in-chief,
was not to be insulted by such a little smuggling slave-
driver as him I I think it was in the year 1780 an accident
happened, when the old Register Office at Williamsburg
was burned down, in which was a copy of the formal
assignment of the Virginia property from Francis Lord
Castlewood to my grandfather Henry Esmond, Esquire.
‘ Oh,’ says Fanny, " of course this is the work of Jack
the Painter I ’ And Mr. Van den Bosch was for prosecuting
her for libel, but that Fanny took to her bed at this juncture*
and died.
Van den Bosch made contracts with the new government,
and sold them bargains, as the phrase is. He supplied
horses, meat, forage, all of bad quality ; but when Arnold
came into Virginia (in the king’s service) and burned
right and left, Van den Bosch’s stores and tobacco-houses
somehow were spared. Some secret Whigs now took
their revenge on the old rascal. A couple of his ships
VIRGINIANS K k
m THE VIEGINIANS
in James ' River, his stores, and a quantity of his cattle
in their stalls were roasted amidst a hideous bellowing ;
and he got a note, as he was in Arnold’s company, saying
that friends had served him, as he served others. ; and con-
taining ‘ Tom the Glazier’s compliments to brother Jack
the Painter’. Nobody pitied the old man, though he went
wellnigh mad at his loss. In Arnold’s suite came the
Honourable Captain William Esmond, of the New York
Loyalists, as aide de camp to the general. When Howe
occupied Philadelphia, Will was said to have made some
money keeping a gambling-house with an oficer of the
dragoons of Anspach. I know not how he lost it. He
could not have h^ much when he consented tp become an
aide de camp of Arnold.
Now the Mng’s officers having reappeared in the province,
Madam Esmond thought fit to open, her house at Castle-
wood, and invite them thither — and actually received
Mr. Arnold and his suite. ‘It is not for me,’ she said,
‘ to refuse my welcome to a man whom my' sovereign has
admitted to grace.’ And she threw her house open to him,
and treated him with great though frigid respect whilst
he remained in the district. The- general gone*,, and; h^
precious aide de camp with him, somq of the rascals who
followed in their suite remained behind in the house where
tjioy had received so much hospitality, insulted the old
Iftdy in her hall, insulted her, people, and finally set fire
to the old mansion in a frolic of drunken fury. Our honse
at Richmond was not burned, luckily, though Mr. Arnold
l^i fired the town ; and thither the undaunted old lady
proceeded, surrounded by her people, and never swerving
ilfciher loyalty, in spite of her ill usage. ‘ The Esmonds,’
she said, ‘ were accustomed to royal ingratitude.’
: And now Mr. Van den Bosch, in the name of his grandson
ajjad my Lord Castlewood, in England, set up a claim to
qur property in Virginia. He said it was not my lord’s
intention to disturb Madam Esmond in her enjoyment
qf the estate during her life, but that his father, it had
always been understood, had given his kinsman a life
interest in the place, and only continued it to his daughter
out jof generosity. Now my lord proposed that his second
son should inhabit Virginia, for which the young gentleman
had 'always .shown the warmest sympathy. The outcry
a^binst Van den Bosch w.as so great, that he would have
UNDER VINE AND HG-TREE
995
been tarred and feathered, had he remained in Virginia.
He betook himself to Congress, represented himself as a
martyr ruined in the cause of liberty, and prayed for
compensation for himself and justice for his grandson.
My mother lived long in dreadful apprehension, having
in truth a secret, which she did not like to disclose to
any one. Her titles were burned ! the deed of assignment
in her own house ; the copy in the Registry at Richmond
had alike been destroyed — ^by chance ? by villany ? who
could say ? She did not like to confide this trouble in
writing to me. She opened herself to Hal, after the sur-
render of York Town, and he acquainted me with the
fact in a letter by a British officer returning home on his
parole. Then I remembered the unlucky words I had let
slip before Will Esmond at the coffee-house at New York ;
and a part of this iniquitous scheme broke upon me.
As for Mr. Will : there is a tablet in Castlewood Church,
in Hampshire, inscribed Bulce et decorum est pro patria mori,
and announcing that ^ This marble is placed by a mourning
brother, to the memory of the Honourable William Esmond,
Esquire, who died in North America, in the service of his
king’. But how? When, towards the end of 1781,
a revolt took place in the Philadelphia Line of the Congress
Army, and Sir Henry Clinton sent out agents to the
mutineers, what became of them ? The men took the
spies prisoners, and proceeded to judge them, and my
brother (whom they knew and loved, and had often followed
under fire), who had been sent from camp to make terms
with the troops, recognized one of the spies, just as execution
was about to be done upon him — ^and the wretch, with
horrid outcries, grovelling and kneeling at Colonel Warring-
ton’s feet, besought him for mercy, and promised to confess
. all to him. To confess what ? Harry turned away sick
at heart. Will’s mother and sister never knew the truth.
They always fancied it was in action he was killed.
As for my lord earl, whose noble son has been the
intendant of an illustrious prince, and who has enriched
himself at play with his r — ^1 master : I went to see his
lordship when I heard of this astounding design against
our property, and remonstrated with him on the matter.
For myself, as I showed him, I was not concerned, as I had
determined to cede my right to my brother. He received
me with perfect courtesy ; smiled when I spoke of my
THE VIRGINIANS
disinterestedness ; said lie was sure of my affectionate
feelings towards my brother, but what must be his
towards his son ? He had always heard from his father :
he would take his Bible-oath of that : that, at my
mother’s death, the property would return to the head
of the family. At the story of the title which Colonel
Esmond had ceded, he shrugged his shoulders, and
treated it as a fable. ‘ On ne fait pas de ces folies4d 1 ’
says he, offering me snuff, ‘and your grandfather was
a man oiE tsprii 1 My little grandmother was iprise of him :
and my father, the most good-natured soul alive, lent
them the Virginian property to get them out of the way 1
G’etait un scandale, mon cher, un joli petit smndale I ’ Oh,
if my mother had but heard him i I might have been
disposed to take a high tone : but he said, with the utmost
good nature, ‘ My dear knight, are you going to fight about
the character of our grandmother, allons done ! Come,
I will be fair with you ! We will compromise, if you like,
about this Virginian property ! ’ and his lordship named
a sum greater than the actual value of the estate.
Amazed at the coolness of this worthy, I walked away
to my coffee-house, where, as it happened, an old friend
was to dine with me, for whom I have a sincere regard:
I had felt a pang at not being able to give this gentleman
my living of Warrington-on- Waveney, but I could not,
as he himself confessed honestly. His life had been too
loose, and his example in my village could never have
been edifying : besides, he would have died of ennui
there, after being accustomed to a town life ; and he had
a prospect finally, he told me, of settling himself most
comfortably in London and the Church.* My guest, I need
not say, was my old friend Sampson, who never failed
to dine with me when I came to town, and I told him
qf my interview with his old patron.
I could not have hghted upon a better confidant.
‘ Gracious powers ! ’ says Sampson, ‘ the man’s roguery
beats all belief ! When I was secretary and factotum at
Gastlewood, I can take my oath I saw more than once
a copy of the deed of assignment by the late lord to your
grandfather : ‘ In consideration of the love I hear to my
* He was the second incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s Chapel,
May Fair, andmtoied Elizabeth, relict of Hermann Voelcker, Esq.,
%e eminent brewer.
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE
997
hirisman Henry Esmond, husband of my dear mother
Rachel, Lady Viscountess Dowager of Castlewood, 7,’ &c. —
so it ran. I know the place where "tis kept — ^let ns go
thither as fast as horses will carry ns to-morrow. There
is somebody there — ^never mind whom, Sir George — ^who
has an old regard for me. The papers may be there to
this very day, and 0 Lord, 0 Lord, but I shall be thankful
if I can in any way show my gratitude to you and your
glorious brother I ’ His eyes filled with tears. He was
an altered man. At a certain period of the port wine
Sampson always alluded with compunction to his past
life, and the change which had taken place in his conduct
since the awful death of his friend Doctor Dodd.
Quick as we were, we did not arrive at Castlewood too
soon. I was looking at the fountain in the court, and
listening to that sweet sad music of its plashing, which
my grandfather tells of in his Memoires, and peopling
the place with bygone figures, with Beatrix in her beauty ;
with my Lord Francis in scarlet, calling to his dogs and
mounting his grey horse ; with the young page of old who
won the castle and the heiress — when Sampson comes
running down to me with an old volume, in rough calf
bound, in his hand, containing drafts of letters, copies of
agreements, and various writings, some by a secretary
of my Lord Francis, some in the slim handwriting of his
wife my grandmother, some bearing the signature of the
last lord ; and here was a copy of the assignment sure
enough, as it had been sent to my grandfather in Virginia.
‘ Victoria, Victoria ! ’ cries Sampson, shaking my hand,
embracing everybody. ‘ Here is a guinea for thee, Betty.
WeTl have a bowl of punch at the "‘Three Castles” to-night!’
As we were talking, the wheels of post-chaises were heard,
and a couple of carriages drove into the court containing
my lord and a friend, and their servants in the next vehicle.
His lordship looked only a httle paler than usual at seeing
me,
‘ What procures me the honour of Sir George Warrington’s
visit, and pray, Mr. Sampson, what do you do here ? ’ says
my lord. I think he had forgotten the existence of this
book, or had never seen it ; and when he offered to take
his Bible-oath of what he had heard from his father, had
simply volunteered a perjury.
I was shaking hands with his companion, a nobleman
998
THE YiRGimms
with whom I had had the honour to serve in America.
‘ I came,’ I said, ‘ to convince myself of a fact, about which
you were mistaken yesterday ; and I find the proof in your
lordship’s own house. Your lordship was pleased to take
your lordship’s Bible-oath, that there was no agreement
between your father and his mother, relative to some
property which I hold. When Mr. Sampson was your
lordship’s secretary, he perfectly remembered having
seen a copy of such an assignment, and here it is.’
‘And do you mean. Sir George Warrington, that unknown
to me you have been visiting my papers ? ’ cries my lord.
‘ I doubted the correctness of your statement, though
backed by your lordship’s Bible-oath,’ I said with a bow.
‘ This, sir, is robbery t Give the papers back ! ’ bawled
my lord.
‘ Robbery is a rough word, my lord. Shall I tell the
whole story to Lord Rawdon ? ’
‘ What, is it about the marquisate ? Connu, connu,
my dear Sir George ! We always called you the marquis
in New York. I don’t know who brought the story from
Virginia.’
I never had heard this absurd nickname before, and
did not care to notice it. ‘ My Lord Castlewood,’ I said,
‘not only doubted, but yesterday laid a claim to my
property, taking his Bible-oath that ’
Castlewood gave a kind of gasp, and then said : ‘ Great
Heaven ! Do you mean, Sir George, that there actually is
an agreement extant ? Yes. Here it is — ^my father’s hand-
writing, sure enough I Then the question is clear. Upon
my o — , well, upon my honour as a gentleman ! I never
knew of such an agreement, and must have been mistaken
in what my father said. This paper clearly shows the
property is yours : and not being mine — ^why, I wish you joy
of it ! ’ and he held out his hand with the blandest smile.
‘And how thankful you will be to me, my lord, for
having enabled him to establish the right,’ says Sampson
with a leer on his face.
‘ Thankful ? No, confound you. Not in the least ! ’
says my lord. ‘ I am a plain man ; I don’t disguise from
my cousin that I would rather have had the property
than he. Sir George, you will stay and dine with us,
a large party is coming down here shooting. We ought to
have you one of us I ^
UNDER VINE AND FIG-TREE 1001
‘ My lord,’ said I, buttoning the book under my coat,
‘ I will go and get this document copied, and then return
it to your lordship. As my mother in Virginia has had
her papers burned, she will be put out of much anxiety
by having this assignment safely lodged.’
‘ What, have Madam Esmond’s papers been burned ?
When the deuce was that ? ’ asks my lord.
‘My lord, I wish you a very good afternoon. Come,
Sampson, you and I will go and dine at the “ Three Castles
And I turned on my heel, making a bow to Lord Rawdon^,
and from that day to this I have never set my foot within
the halls of my ancestors.
Shall I ever see the old mother again, I wonder ? She
lives in Richmond, never having rebuilt her house in
the country. When Hal was in England, we sent her
pictures of both her sons, painted by the admirable Sir
J oshua Reynolds. We sat to him, the last year Mr. Johnson
was alive, I remember. And the doctor peering about
the studio, and seeing the image of Hal in his uniform
(the appearance of it caused no little excitement in those
days), asked who was this ? and was informed that it was
the famous American general — General Warrington, Sir
George’s brother. ‘ General Who ? ’ cries the doctor,
‘ General Where ? Pooh ! I don’t know such a service ! ’
and he turned his back and walked out of the premises.
My worship is painted in scarlet, and we have replicas
of both performances at home. But the picture which
Captain Miles and the girls declare to be most like is a
family sketch by my ingenious neighbour, Mr. Bunbury,
who has drawn me and my lady with Monsieur Gumbo
following us, and written under the piece, ‘ Sir George,
MY Lady, and their Master.’
Here my master comes ; he has poked out all the house-
fires, has looked to aU the bolts, has ordered the whole
male and female crew to their chambers ; and begins to blow
my candles out, and says, ‘ Time, Sir George, to go to
bed ! Twelve o’clock ! ’
‘ Bless me ! So indeed it is.’ And I close my book,
and go to my rest, with a blessing on those now around
me asleep.
THE END
APPENDIX
The text of The Virginians in this book is that of the 1863
edition, the last revised by G^ackeray himself. The
illustrations are from the first edition, published in 1858-9 ;
they were omitted from the later issue. In this Appendix
all the more important differences between the 1859 and
1863 texts are noted, the portions suppressed in the latter
edition being subjoined.
Chaptee XXVI
1. p. 264. For and so much the better the first edition reads the
volto sciolto — ^hey,
2. p. 264. Omit * If Mr. Warrington . . . mustn’t they, March ? ’
and read ‘ I beg your pardon,’ said downright Harry, ‘ Trench is
the only language besides my own of which I know a little.’
‘ My Lord March has learned Italian at the Opera, and a pretty
penny his lessons have cost him,’ remarked Jack Morris. ‘ We must
show him the Opera, mustn’t we, March ? ’
3. p. 265. For they the first edition reads we.
4. p. 265. For for indoor games read about the Opera.
Chaptee XXXVIII
1. p. 402. AM ’Tis certain, dearly beloved brethren, that
the little griefs, stings, annoyances which you and I feel acutely in
our own persons, don’t prevent our neighbours from sleeping ; and
that when we slip out of the world, the world does not miss us. Is
this humiliating to our vanity ? So much the better. But, on the
other hand, is it not a comfortable and consolmg truth ? And mayn’t'
we be thankful for our humble condition ? If we were not selfish —
'passez-moi le mot, s, v, p. — ^and if we had to care for other people’s
griefs as much as our own, how intolerable human life would be !
If my neighbour’s tight boot pinched my corn; if the calumny uttered
against Jones set Brown into fury; if Mrs. A’s death plunged
Messrs. B, C, D, E, F, into distraction, would there be any bearing
of the world’s burthen ? Do not let us be in the least angry or sur-
prised if all the company played on, and were happy, although Lady
Maria had come to grief. Countess, the deal is with you I Are you
going to Stubblefield to shoot as usual, Sir John ? Captain, we shall
have you running off to the Bath after the widow ! So the clatter
goes on ; the lights burn ; the beaux and the ladies flirt, laugh,
ogle ; the prisoner rages in his cell ; the sick man tosses on his bed.
1004
APBJENDIX
Chapteb XLIII
1. p. 442. iThsert And don’t, my dear brethren, let us cry out too
loudly against the selfishness of the world for being kind to the
young, handsome, and fortunate, and frowning upon you and me,
who may be, for argument’s sake, old, ugly, and the miserablest
dogs under the sun. If I have a right to choose my acquaintance,
and — at the club, let us say — prefer the company of a lively, hand-
some, well-dressed, gentleman-like young man, who amuses me, to
that of a slouching, ill-washed, misanthropic H-murderer, a cease-
lessly prating coxcomb, or what not ; has not society — ^the aggregate
you and I — a right to the same choice ?
2. p. 450. Insert whereof the lappets and the coat-tails and the
general pocket accommodations were much more ample than in the
scant military garments of present warriors.
Chapteb XLVI
1. p. 473. Add As if the public does not end by knowing
everything it cares to know. As if the dinner I shall have to-day,
and the hole in the stocking which I wear at this present writing,
can be kept a secret from some enemy or other who has a mind to
pry it out — though my boots are on, and my door was locked when
I dressed myself ! I mention that hole in the stocking for sake of
example merely. The world can pry out everything about us which
it has a mind to know. But then there is this consolation, which
men will never accept in their own cases, that the world doesn’t
care. Consider the amount of scandal it has been forced to hear in
its time, and how weary and hlase it must be of that kind of intelli-
gence. You are taken to prison, and fancy yourself indelibly
disgraced ? You are bankrupt under odd circumstances ? You drive
a queer bargain with your friends and are found out, and imagine
the world will punish you ? Psha ! - Your shame is only vanity. Go
and talk to the world as if nothing had happened, and nothing has
happened. Tumble down ; brush the mud off your clothes ; appear
with a smiling countenance, and nobody cares. Do you suppose
Society is going to take out its pocket-handkerchief, and be incon-
solable when you die ? Why should it care very much, then, whether
your worship graces yourself or disgraces yourself ? Whatever
happens, it talks, meets, jokes, yawns, has its dinner, pretty much
as before. Therefore don’t be so conceited about yourself as to fancy
your private affairs of so much importance, mi fli. Whereas
3!4r. Harry Warringfcon chafed and fumed as though all the world
was tingling with the touch of that hand which had been laid on his
sublime shoulder.
2. p. 475. Insert The language of slaves is lies (I mean black
slaves and white). The creature slinks away and hides with subter-
fuges, as a hunted animal runs to his covert at the sight of man, the
tyrant and pursuer. Strange relics of feudality, and consequence of
our ever-so-old social life ! Our domestics (are they not men, too,
and brethren ?) are all hypocrites before us. They never speak
APPENDIX
1005
naturally to us, or the whole truth. We should be indignant : we
should say, confound their impudence : we should turn them out of
doors if they did. But quo me rapis ? 0 my unbridled hobby ?
Well, the truth is, that as for swearing, etc.
Chapter LV
1. p. 572. For in their days of confidence read in those days of
confidence of which we made mention in the last volume.
Chapter LVII
1. p. 690. Add What a romantic vista is before young Damon
and young Phillis (or middle-aged ditto ditto) when, their artless
loves made known to each other, they twine their arms round each
other’s waists and survey that charming pays du tendre which lies
at their feet ! Into that country, so linked together, they will wander
from now until extreme old age. There may be rooks and roaring
rivers, but will not Damon’s strong true love enable him to carry
Sweetheart over them ? There may be dragons and dangers in the
path, but shall not his courageous sword cut them down ? Then at
eve, how they will rest cud(fied together like two pretty babes in
the wood, the moss their couch, the stars their canopy, their arms
their mutual pillows I This is the wise plan young folks make when
they set out on the love- journey, and — oh me !— rthey have not got
a mile when they come to a great wall and find they must walk back
again. They are squabbling with the post-boy at Barnet (the first
stage on the Gretna Road, I mean), and, behold, perhaps Strephon
has not got any money, or here is Papa with a whacking horse- whip,
who takes Miss back again, and locks her up crying in the school-
room. The parting is heart-breaking ; but, when she has married the
banker, and had eight children, and he has become, it maybe, a pros-
perous barrister, — ^it maybe, a seedy raff who has gone twice or thrice
into the Gazette ; when, I say, in after years Strephon and Delia meet
again, is not the meeting ridiculous ? Nevertheless, I hope no young
man will fall in love, having any doubt as to the eternity of his
passion. ’Tis when a man has had a second or third amorous attack
that he begins to grow doubtful ; but some women are romantic to
the end, and, from eighteen to eight-and-fifty (for what I know), are
always expecting their hearts to break. In fine, when you have
been in love, and are so no more, when the King of France, with
twenty thousand men, with colours fljdng, music playing, and all
the pomp of war, having marched up the hill, then proceeds to march
down again, he and you are in an absurd position.
Chapter LIX
1. p. 614. For his rmd this.
Chapter LXI
1. p. 633. Add at all.
1036
APPENDIX
Chapter LXII
1. p.
037.
For taste read turn.
Chapter LXXI
1. p-
754.
Insert dear.
Chapter LXXVIII
1. p.
829.
Insert Mr.
2. p-
830.
For l>ear read bare.
3. p.
831.
Insert Demmy !
Chapter LXXXVII
1. p.
931.
For Ptaleigh read Raley.
2. p.
932.
For condition read conditions.
3. p-
933.
Insei^ and heroic.
Chapter XCII
!• p.
983.
For deep read the deepest.
2. p.
1001.
For Rawdon read
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